Universities and intellectual property rights in Southern European countries

Abstract

This paper analyses and discusses the patenting activity of Public Research Organizations (PROs) in Southern European countries. Despite the importance of the topic, studies about the European experience are rare. By using an original database of “American” (USPTO) and “European” (EPO) patents held by PROs in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece, we observe that the number of university patents in these countries has not increased dramatically during the last years, despite a growing interest at both European and national level during the same period. However, differences do exist among countries in terms of number of granted patents and regulative frameworks. With regard to PROs patenting strategies, we argue that PROs should be progressively able to adopt a “balanced” approach, in order to achieve co-existence between the traditional mechanisms of the so-called “open research system” and the more recent concerns about intellectual property protection, technology transfer and regional development.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Mauro Balzano, Alessandra Patrono, Lucia Viegi, Giovanni Piccinno, Pasquale C. Moscara and Federica Viva for their support in collecting and analysing data, and Joaquìn Azagra Caro, Alfonso Gambardella, Ed Steinmuller, Nathan Rosenberg, and two anonymous referees for helpful suggestions and discussions on the topic. A previous version of this work has been presented at the SPRU NPRnet Conference ‘Rethinking Science Policy: Analytical Frameworks for Evidence-Based Policy’ 21–23 March 2002, SPRU, University of Sussex, Brighton, and the authors wish to thank participants at the Conference for their helpful comments. The usual disclaimers apply. Financial support from CNR and MIUR is also gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

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6. M. Fontes, “Patenting Performance of Universities and Other Research Organisations in Portugal”, Working Paper, 010/01, 2001, Departamento de Modelaçao e Simulaçao de Processos, INETI—Instituto Nacional de Engenharia e Tecnologia Industrial, Lisbon (Portugal); A. Piccaluga and A. Patrono, L'attività Brevettuale degli Enti Pubblici di Ricerca Italiani. Un'Analisi del Periodo 1982–2001, Economia e Politica Industriale, 109, 2001, pp. 81–114.

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8. C. E. Garcìa and L. Sanz-Menéndez, From research to patents within Spanish Public Research Organizations (PROs), Unidad de Politicas Comparadas (CSIC), Working Paper 02-26, December, 2002.

9. J. T. Wallmark, Invention and patents at universities: The case of Chalmers University of Technology, Technovation, 17(3), 1997, pp. 127–139; J. M. Azagra Caro and E. Tomás Dolado, Determining factors of university patents: The case of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Institute of Innovation and Knowledge Management, Valencia (Spain), mimeo, 2001.

10. A. Monotti and S. Ricketson, Universities and Their Exploitation of Intellectual Properties (Clarendon Press, 2003).

11. A. Geuna and A. Nesta, University Patenting and its Effects on Academic Research, SPRU Electronic Working Paper Series, 99, 2003, SPRU—University of Sussex, Birghton, UK.

12. D. C. Mowery and B. N. Sampat, University patents and patent policy debates in the USA, 1925–1980, Industrial and Corporate Change, 10(3), 2001, pp. 781–814.

13. A. Jaffe, The US patent system in transition: Policy innovation and the innovation process, Research Policy, 29, 2000, pp. 531–557; B. Carlsson and A. C. Fridh, Technology transfer in United States universities: A survey and statistical analysis, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 2002, 12(1–2), pp. 199–232.

14. R. Henderson, A. Jaffe and M. Trajtenberg, Universities as a source of commercial technology: A detailed analysis of university patenting 1965–1988, Review of Economics and Statistics, 80(1), 1998, pp. 119–127.

15. US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Technology Assessment and Forecast Report. US Colleges and Universities—Utility Patent Grants 1969–1999, Washington, DC, 2000.

16. R. Henderson et al., 1998, op. cit.

17. Patent “quality” is indicated by the frequency of citations that a patent receives from patents granted in the following years.

18. D. C. Mowery et al., 2001, op. cit.

19. J. Lowe, Commercialization of university research: A policy perspective, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 5(1), 1993, pp. 27–37; Clark, 1998, op.cit.

20. M. Feldman, I. Feller, J. Bercovitz and R. Burton, Equity and the technology transfer strategies of American research universities, Management Science, 48(1), January, 2002, pp. 105–121.

21. A. Geuna, The changing rationale for European university research funding: Are there negative unintended consequences? Journal of Economic Issues, 35(5), 2001, pp. 607–632.

22. Among others, see H. Etzkowitz et al., 2000, op. cit.

23. R. Florida, The role of the university: Leveraging talent, not technology, Issues on Science and Technology, XV(4), 1999, pp. 67–73; A. Salter, P. D'Este, K. Pavitt, A. Scott, B. Martin, A. Geuna, P. Nightingale and P. Patel, Talent, Not Technology: The Impact of Publicly Funded Research on Innovation in the UK, SPRU—Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, 2000.

24. A. Geuna and A. Nesta, 2003, op. cit., P. Dasgupta and P. A. David, Towards a new economics of science, Research Policy, 23, 1994, pp. 487–521.

25. R. R. Nelson, “The Contribution of American Research Universities to Technological Progress in Industry”, paper presented to the conference Science as an Institution. The Institutions of Science, Siena (Italy), January 25–26, 2002.

26. Ibid; D. C. Mowery and B. N. Sampat, 2001, op. cit.; D. C. Mowery et al., 2001, op. cit.

27. D. C. Mowery et al., 2001, op. cit.

28. See also J. T. Wallmark, 1997, op. cit. about this point.

29. See J. T. Wallmark, 1997, op. cit.

30. It is worth noting that the USPTO and EPO databases present few differences in their searching strategies. Specifically, while the USPTO search engine supports right truncation in queries with the use of a wildcard ($), this possibility is excluded in the EPO search engine. Therefore, some missing data might occur in the latter case.

31. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), CNR Report 2001 (Rome, CNR, 2001).

32. Table 2 excludes PROs different from universities and colleges, and only includes USPTO patent applications.

33. L. Zucker, M. Darby and J. Armstrong, Geographically localized knowledge: Spillovers or markets? Economic Inquiry, 36, 1998, pp. 65–86; N. Lamoreaux and K. Sokoloff, Location and Technological Change in the American Glass Industry during the Late Nineteenth and Early 20th Centuries, NBER Working Paper, 5938, 1997, NBER, Cambridge, MA; N. Lamoreaux and K. Sokoloff, Inventors, firms, and the market for technology: US manufacturing in the late nineteenth and early 20th centuries, in: N. Lamoreaux, D. Raff and P. Temin (eds) Learning by Firms, Organizations, and Nations (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1999).

34. M. Balconi, S. Breschi and F. Lissoni, Networks of inventors and the role of Academia: An exploration of Italian patent data, Research Policy, 33(1), 2004, pp. 127–145.

35. As a matter of fact, in some Italian universities, some researchers are not in favour of a further formalisation of patenting rules in universities since they fear that this might represent an obstacle to their activity for industrial partners, often interested in being patent holders.

36. CNRS, Rapport d'activité du CNRS 2000, 2001 (available at http://www.cnrs.fr/cw/fr/band/cnrs/rapports/rap00/accueil.html last visited 24th August 2003).

37. In the case of CNR, a recent study (Abramo and Lucantoni, 2003, op. cit.) shows that researchers might have in the past considered a patent a sort of an equivalent to a scientific publication. In this case, patents have not been used for technology transfer purposes. In terms of public concerns, this approach leads to a potential “double mistake”, because it may constrain the possible diffusion of knowledge, and may produce a waste of public money.

38. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), CNR Report 2002 (Rome, CNR, 2002).

39. See European Commission (Thematic Report “IPR and Innovation”, 2002, European Trend Chart on Innovation, European Commission, Enterprise Directorate-General, Brussels) for a review of national legislation concerning IPRs in Europe.

40. N. Argyres and J. Liebeskind, Privatizing the intellectual commons: Universities and the commercialization of biotechnology, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 35, 1998, pp. 427–454.

41. The text of the law can be found at http://www.oepm.es References can be found in A. Blanco Jiménez, Protección Jurídica de las Invenciones Universitarias y Laborales (Pamplona, Aranzadi, 1999).

42. European Commission, 2002, op. cit.

43. On this respect, see the model developed by P. Dasgupta and P. A. David, 1994, op. cit.

44. J. G. Thursby and M. C. Thursby, Who is selling the Ivory Tower? Sources of growth in university licensing, Management Science, 48(1), 2002, pp. 90–104.

45. A. Gambardella, P. Giuri and A. Luzzi, How Do Firms Use Their Patents, paper presented at the workshop Firms, Technology and Markets, Bocconi University, Milan, November 19th–20th, 2004.