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Assessments of technology transfer activities of US universities and associated impact of Bayh–Dole Act

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Abstract

Patents and licenses are foundational to successful technology transfer in universities. In this article, the activities and performance of university patenting and licensing are studied to gauge the effectiveness of the Bayh–Dole Act (the “Act”), the most influential piece of US legislation on university technology transfer (UTT). Based on raw data from five sources, the annual numbers of patents granted, licenses signed, startup companies launched, and research expenditures are analyzed. Correlations are performed for all data presented to quantify trends over different time periods. We found that patenting and licensing activities in US universities slowed down greatly after 2000 and remained flat until the period from 2010 to 2012, when activities recover to the level of strength characterizing the period before 2000 and after the enactment of the Act. We identify that economic recessions is the major cause to the flatness of the patenting activities during 2000s. We also explain some of the differences found among different data sources and time periods.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is based on a keynote speech delivered by the first author in 2014 International Conference on Innovation in Economics and Business (ICIEB2014), Barcelona, Spain, February 22, 2014; a short version of this paper has been published on the conference’s online system. The authors are grateful to Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports to provide the government endowed professorship to the first author at Brno University of Technology (BUT) to write this paper under Project No. HEATEAM-CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0188. The Honorary Chair Professorships provided by National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taipei) and Henan University (Kaifeng) to the first author in 2013 are also acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, 10607, Taiwan, ROC

    Ampere A. Tseng

  2. Brno University of Technology, 616 69, Brno, Czech Republic

    Miroslav Raudensky

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, 10607, Taiwan, ROC

    Ampere A. Tseng

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  1. Ampere A. Tseng
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Correspondence to Ampere A. Tseng.

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Tseng, A.A., Raudensky, M. Assessments of technology transfer activities of US universities and associated impact of Bayh–Dole Act. Scientometrics 101, 1851–1869 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-014-1404-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-014-1404-6

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