Science and Technology Policy I

Do Patents Reflect the Useful Research Output of Universities?

João Silva

Ricardo Manso

SPRU Electronic Working Papers Series Paper No 6 – 1997

Keith Pavitt

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Summary

• Patents granted to universities give a very partial and

distorted picture of the contribution of university research

to technical change;

• Citations in patents to published research are one of the

most valid contributions of university research to

technical change;

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What is a Patent

• Temporary monopoly on an invention in exchange for the publication of its details;

• Reconciliation between the interests of inventors, profit from the invention, with the interests of society, to have access to the information;

• Exclusive right to the owner to manufacture, market, or exploit for gain the invention claimed in the patent;

• Prohibits the import of protected products from countries in which the invention has not yet been patented;

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Patent Application

• Patents have been mostly awarded to business firms, with the remaining being granted to individuals, many of whom turn out to be owners of SME;

• Large firms predominate in science-based sectors, like chemicals, and electric-electronics. This reflects the common activities carried out in R&D laboratories;

• SME predominate in non-electrical machinery, measuring and control instruments. This reflects the skills on design activities frequently held by SME;

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Patenting Information

• A source to learn about trends in technical change;

• A means to analyse technical change by its:

– Nature;

– Source;

– Socio-economic effects;

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Patenting Information

• Advances on IT have vastly reduced the cost of accessing

and manipulating patenting information;

• IT has also facilitated improvements in measurement and

analysis of patent protection processes;

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Effectiveness of Patenting

• European entities value patent protection more than their

US counterparts;

• The effectiveness of patent protection is very similar in

Europe and in the US;

• Patents are considered to be more effective in protecting

product innovations than process innovations in most

sectors;

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Effectiveness of Patenting

Inter-Industry differences in the effectiveness of patent protection

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Patenting Activity in Universities

• Number of patents attributed to universities is much less

than their share of R&D funding (17% in OECD);

• In 1990 only 5% of total US patents was attributable to

US universities;

• Patenting protection from US universities was mostly in

the fields of chemistry, drugs and medicine (60-65%);

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Patenting Activity in Universities

• Patents reflect the indirect contribution of university

research by underestimating the contribution to practical

applications;

• Universities provide underlying knowledge skills and

techniques that help firms to solve more complex and

demanding problems;

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Patenting Activity in Universities

• Business firms concentrate on developing and testing

specific innovation and artefacts;

• The small contribution to patenting activity from

universities thus reflect a distrinct role in the process of

technical change;

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Patenting Barriers

• Patenting of university research implies the privatisation

of public knowledge, which is considered to be

economically eneficient;

• Increased emphasis on patenting by universities can

distort or diminish other more useful activities;

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Patent Citations

• To prove their novelty, patent applications must show

their awareness of earlier inventions and discoveries;

• Patents in several domains depend strongly on the

knowledge published in contemporaneous scientific

papers;

• The evidence of inventions building on previous

knowledge usually comes through the form of citations;

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Patent Citations

• Each US patent cites, on average, ten earlier patents, one

science jornal and one other source;

• 73% of the papers cited by US industry patents are public

science, authored at academic, govermental and other

public institutions;

• Analysis of patent citations to research journals can offer

rich insights into the contribution of academic research to

pratical applications;

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Patent Citations

• Patent examiners usually refer what are the most

important citations to which the invention builds;

• Citations have been loaded into databases, thus becoming

a rich source of information and analysis of knowledge;

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Patent Citations

• Citation information can be used both to:

– Understand more deeply the characteristics of the

academic research results cited in patents;

– Compare numbers of patent citations within fields and

amongst institutions;

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Conclusion

• Patenting information should not be used to make comparisons between fields or institutions;

• Patenting information underestimates the contribution of university research to practical applications;

• Citations in patents to published papers provide a detailed picture of the direct contribution of academic research to technical change;

• Given their relative importance, citations should not be used to make comparisons amongst fields of academic science and engineering;

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Conclusion

• Universities provide underlying knowledge skills and

techniques that help firms to solve more complex and

demanding problems;

• Useful published research tends to be publicly funded,

national and high quality;

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Annex I

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Annex II

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Annex III

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Annex IV

Cheers!

joao.silva@networkcontacto.com

ricardo_manso@hp.com