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What Characterizes Firms' Academic Patents? Academic Involvement in Industrial Inventions in Sweden

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  • Daniel Ljungberg
  • Maureen McKelvey

Abstract

This paper investigates the characteristics and importance of academic involvement in industrial invention processes by comparing firms' academic and non-academic patents. In contrast to previous research, this paper analyses firm-owned patents, which provides insight into the characteristics and relative importance of inventions resulting from university--industry collaboration. The empirical analysis in this paper is based on a database of Swedish academic patents. Our results indicate that academic involvement mainly takes place in inventions highly related to firms' technology bases. The findings moreover show that firms' academic patents, as compared to their non-academic patents, have lower importance in firms' core technological fields but higher importance in their marginal fields. We provide an interpretation of these results, suggesting that firm-owned academic patents largely result from “demand pull” rather than “science push” and that firms involve academics mainly for problem-solving activities in their core technological fields.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Ljungberg & Maureen McKelvey, 2012. "What Characterizes Firms' Academic Patents? Academic Involvement in Industrial Inventions in Sweden," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(7), pages 585-606, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:indinn:v:19:y:2012:i:7:p:585-606
    DOI: 10.1080/13662716.2012.726808
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Colin Webb & Hélène Dernis & Dietmar Harhoff & Karin Hoisl, 2005. "Analysing European and International Patent Citations: A Set of EPO Patent Database Building Blocks," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2005/9, OECD Publishing.
    2. Guellec, Dominique & van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie, Bruno, 2007. "The Economics of the European Patent System: IP Policy for Innovation and Competition," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199216987.
    3. Francesco Lissoni & Bulat Sanditov & Gianluca Tarasconi, 2006. "The Keins Database on Academic Inventors: Methodology and Contents," KITeS Working Papers 181, KITeS, Centre for Knowledge, Internationalization and Technology Studies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised Sep 2006.
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    Cited by:

    1. Anders Broström & Maureen McKelvey, 2015. "Universities and public research institutes as collaboration partners for firms," Chapters, in: Charlie Karlsson & Urban Gråsjö & Sofia Wixe (ed.), Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Global Economy, chapter 2, pages 44-64, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Alice Civera & Michele Meoli & Silvio Vismara, 2019. "Do academic spinoffs internationalize?," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 381-403, April.
    3. Elena M. Tur & Evangelos Bourelos & Maureen McKelvey, 2022. "The case of sleeping beauties in nanotechnology: a study of potential breakthrough inventions in emerging technologies," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 69(3), pages 683-708, December.
    4. Quatraro, Francesco & Scandura, Alessandra, 2020. "Regional patterns of unrelated technological diversification: the role of academic inventors," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis LEI & BRICK - Laboratory of Economics of Innovation "Franco Momigliano", Bureau of Research in Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge, Collegio 202001, University of Turin.
    5. Alessandra Perri & Daniela Silvestri & Francesco Zirpoli, 2019. "Technology evolution in the global automotive industry: a patent-based analysis," Working Papers 04, Venice School of Management - Department of Management, Università Ca' Foscari Venezia.
    6. Ethan Gifford & Maureen McKelvey, 2019. "Knowledge-Intensive Entrepreneurship and S3: Conceptualizing Strategies for Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-16, September.
    7. Hanne Peeters & Julie Callaert & Bart Looy, 2020. "Do firms profit from involving academics when developing technology?," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 494-521, April.

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