US faculty patenting
Subtitle: inside and outside the university
By: Jerry Thursby, Anne Fuller, Marie Thursby.
Contributors: Fuller, Anne, 1960-; Thursby, Marie.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 13256.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 13256.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 22
Subjects: Patent licenses -- United States -- Mathematical models; Patent assignments -- United States -- Mathematical models; Education, Higher -- Research -- United States
Other titles: United States faculty patenting.
Description: This paper examines the empirical anomaly that in a sample of 5811 patents on which US faculty are listed as inventors, 26% of the patents are assigned solely to firms rather than to the faculty member's university as is dictated by US university employment policies or the Bayh Dole Act. In this paper we estimate a series of probability models of assignment as a function of patent characteristics, university policy, and inventor fields in order to examine the extent to which outside assignment is nefarious or comes from legitimate activities, such as consulting. Patents assigned to firms (whether established or start-ups with inventor as principal) are less basic than those assigned to universities suggesting these patents result from faculty consulting. A higher inventor share increases the likelihood of university assignment as compared with assignment to a firm in which the inventor is a principal but it has no effect on consulting with established firms versus assignment to the university. Faculty in the physical sciences and engineering are more likely to assign their patents to established firms than those in biological sciences.
Notes: "July 2007."

Includes bibliographical references (p. 21-22).

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