IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/csc/cerisp/200510.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The patenting regime in the Italian public research system: what motivates public inventors to patent

Author

Abstract

The paper deals with two aspects: the public ownership of intellectual property rights and the holding of the title (individuals vs institutions) for the public financed research. A key problem in the past and still now in Europe has been the low transfer of results coming from public research to industrial users. Recently a new trend developed which favours the patenting of the scientific results of public actors. This change partly comes from the modification of the public funding mechanism of allocation and goes with changes in the regulation and regime related to the ownership of intellectual property rights. The paper is built on a pilot study, which controlled if and how the modification in national regulation affected the actors’ behaviour. It is based on a survey of public inventors, in two public institutions (Cnr and Roma 1 University) who disclosed their inventions to the institutions in the last three years; on interviews with the responsible persons of the patent offices in the two institutions and on some data from the Cnr 2005 patent portfolio. This pilot study on public patenting in Italy seems to confirm the persistence of the academic incentives in the patenting activities of the public research institutions, even in presence of the 2001 patenting regime, aimed to assign IPR title to the public inventors. Furthermore the results highlight the presence of a relation between public institutions and firms that are not completely captured by the patenting indicators. Patents are only the emerging part of a more large hidden area of relationships between public institutions and industrial firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Bianca Poti' & Emanuela Reale, 2005. "The patenting regime in the Italian public research system: what motivates public inventors to patent," CERIS Working Paper 200510, CNR-IRCrES Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth - Torino (TO) ITALY - former Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth - Moncalieri (TO) ITALY.
    • Handle: RePEc:csc:cerisp:200510
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.byterfly.eu/islandora/object/librib:357825
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Margherita Balconi & Stefano Breschi & Francesco Lissoni, 2002. "Networks of Inventors and the Location of University Research: An Exploration of Italian Data," KITeS Working Papers 127, KITeS, Centre for Knowledge, Internationalization and Technology Studies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised May 2002.
    2. Mowery, David C. & Nelson, Richard R. & Sampat, Bhaven N. & Ziedonis, Arvids A., 2001. "The growth of patenting and licensing by U.S. universities: an assessment of the effects of the Bayh-Dole act of 1980," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 99-119, January.
    3. Nicolas Carayol, 2004. "Academic incentives and research organization for patenting at a large French university," Post-Print hal-00279232, HAL.
    4. Aldo Geuna, 2001. "The Changing Rationale for European University Research Funding: Are There Negative Unintended Consequences?," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 607-632, September.
    5. Rebecca Henderson & Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 1998. "Universities As A Source Of Commercial Technology: A Detailed Analysis Of University Patenting, 1965-1988," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 119-127, February.
    6. Aldo Geuna, 1999. "The Economics of Knowledge Production," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1689.
    7. Manuel Trajtenberg & Rebecca Henderson & Adam Jaffe, 1997. "University Versus Corporate Patents: A Window On The Basicness Of Invention," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 19-50.
    8. Paula Stephan & Shiferaw Gurmu & Albert Sumell & Grant Black, 2007. "Who'S Patenting In The University? Evidence From The Survey Of Doctorate Recipients," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 71-99.
    9. Nicolas Carayol, 2007. "Academic Incentives, Research Organization And Patenting At A Large French University," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 119-138.
    10. Ajay Agrawal & Rebecca Henderson, 2002. "Putting Patents in Context: Exploring Knowledge Transfer from MIT," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(1), pages 44-60, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Larsen, Maria Theresa, 2011. "The implications of academic enterprise for public science: An overview of the empirical evidence," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 6-19, February.
    2. Van Looy, Bart & Landoni, Paolo & Callaert, Julie & van Pottelsberghe, Bruno & Sapsalis, Eleftherios & Debackere, Koenraad, 2011. "Entrepreneurial effectiveness of European universities: An empirical assessment of antecedents and trade-offs," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 553-564, May.
    3. Crespi, Gustavo & D'Este, Pablo & Fontana, Roberto & Geuna, Aldo, 2011. "The impact of academic patenting on university research and its transfer," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 55-68, February.
    4. Nicolas Carayol & Elodie Carpentier, 2022. "The spread of academic invention: a nationwide case study on French data (1995–2012)," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 1395-1421, October.
    5. Hanna Hottenrott & Cornelia Lawson, 2014. "Research grants, sources of ideas and the effects on academic research," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 109-133, March.
    6. Hottenrott, Hanna & Thorwarth, Susanne, 2010. "Industry funding of university research and scientific productivity," ZEW Discussion Papers 10-105, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    7. Ugo Rizzo & Nicolò Barbieri & Laura Ramaciotti & Demian Iannantuono, 2020. "The division of labour between academia and industry for the generation of radical inventions," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 393-413, April.
    8. Buenstorf, Guido, 2009. "Is commercialization good or bad for science? Individual-level evidence from the Max Planck Society," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 281-292, March.
    9. Mario Calderini & Chiara Franzoni & Andrea Vezzulli, 2007. "The Unequal Benefits of Academic Patenting for Science and Engineering Research," KITeS Working Papers 203, KITeS, Centre for Knowledge, Internationalization and Technology Studies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy, revised Oct 2007.
    10. Abreu, Maria & Grinevich, Vadim, 2013. "The nature of academic entrepreneurship in the UK: Widening the focus on entrepreneurial activities," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 408-422.
    11. Fabrizio Cesaroni & Andrea Piccaluga & Giuseppe Conti, 2005. "Technology Transfer Offices (TTO) in Italian universities: what they do and how they do it," Working Papers 200505, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa, Istituto di Management.
    12. Heike Grimm & Johannes Jaenicke, 2015. "Testing the causal relationship between academic patenting and scientific publishing in Germany: Crowding-out or reinforcement?," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 512-535, June.
    13. Banal-Estañol, Albert & Jofre-Bonet, Mireia & Lawson, Cornelia, 2015. "The double-edged sword of industry collaboration: Evidence from engineering academics in the UK," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(6), pages 1160-1175.
    14. Cornelia Lawson, 2013. "Academic patenting: the importance of industry support," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 509-535, August.
    15. Manuel Acosta & Daniel Coronado & M. Ángeles Martínez, 2018. "Does technological diversification spur university patenting?," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 96-119, February.
    16. Cornelia Lawson, 2013. "Academic Inventions Outside the University: Investigating Patent Ownership in the UK," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(5), pages 385-398, July.
    17. Paula Susana Figueiredo Moutinho & Margarida Fontes & Manuel Mira Godinho, 2007. "Do individual factors matter? A survey of scientists’ patenting in Portuguese public research organisations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 70(2), pages 355-377, February.
    18. Magerman, Tom & Looy, Bart Van & Debackere, Koenraad, 2015. "Does involvement in patenting jeopardize one’s academic footprint? An analysis of patent-paper pairs in biotechnology," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(9), pages 1702-1713.
    19. José Manuel Pastor & Lorenzo Serrano, 2016. "The determinants of the research output of universities: specialization, quality and inefficiencies," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1255-1281, November.
    20. Aldo Geuna & Alessandro Muscio, 2008. "The governance of University knowledge transfer," SPRU Working Paper Series 173, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public patenting; Regulation on public patenting; Incentives for public inventors; Determinants of public patenting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K11 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Property Law
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:csc:cerisp:200510. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anna Perin or Giancarlo Birello (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cerisit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.