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The Decline of University Patenting and the End of the Bayh-Dole Effect
Loet Leydesdorff, Martin Meyer
TL;DR
The paper examines the reported decline in university patenting after Bayh-Dole and compares patenting data across major patent databases. It finds that patenting continues to gain globally but has declined in advanced economies, which the authors link to changing university-ranking incentives.
Problem
The paper investigates the relative decline in US university patenting since 2000 after new data corresponded with the authors’ earlier findings.
Source: Introduction · p. 4Method
The authors compare university patenting using USPTO, WIPO, and EPO data, including worldwide searches of specific universities’ patent portfolios.
Source: Methods and materials · pp. 5–6Results
University patenting still gains momentum globally, but it has declined domestically and internationally in the most advanced economies.
Source: Discussion and Conclusions · pp. 10–11Takeaways & Limitations
The authors argue that rankings weaken patenting incentives because patents and spin-offs are usually excluded, while international collaborations and coauthorships have gained importance in research assessment.
Source: Discussion and Conclusions · p. 10Recent counts may be affected by publication lag, and the EPO’s 2005–06 expansion indicates its database was still under construction.
Source: Methods and materials · p. 6
Abstract
from arXiv · showhide
University patenting has been heralded as a symbol of changing relations between universities and their social environments. The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 in the USA was eagerly promoted by the OECD as a recipe for the commercialization of university research, and the law was imitated by a number of national governments. However, since the 2000s university patenting in the most advanced economies has been on the decline both as a percentage and in absolute terms. We suggest that the institutional incentives for university patenting have disappeared with the new regime of university ranking. Patents and spin-offs are not counted in university rankings. In the new arrangements of university-industry-government relations, universities have become very responsive to changes in their relevant environments.
Introduction
The introduction frames university patenting as a measure of changing university–society relations and revisits whether Bayh-Dole-style policy explains its trajectory. It situates the question amid mixed international experiences and evidence of a US decline since 2000.
Introduction
- University patenting, licensing royalties, and spin-offs have served as indicators of commercialization, although licensing and spin-off measures are harder to quantify than patent statistics.The introduction also links patenting to proposed shifts in university functions and university-industry-government relations.Source: Introduction · p. 2
- Bayh-Dole allowed federally funded researchers to patent and license inventions, and has been treated as both a cause and an effect of rising US university patenting.Mowery and Sampat charted increasing university participation in the national patenting system from 1963 onward.Source: Introduction · p. 2
- Bayh-Dole-style legislation spread internationally, but outcomes varied: researchers described contextual barriers, collaboration problems, and independent patenting increases of 250% in Germany, 300% in Belgium, and 500% in Denmark.The cited work argues that patenting needs a fertile context inside and outside campus; changing IP laws and ownership alone cannot reproduce the US experience.Source: Introduction · pp. 3–4
- The authors report a relative decline in US university patenting since 2000 and investigate it further after external data corresponded with their earlier findings.They had not previously published the results because their indicators were not sufficiently robust.Source: Introduction · p. 4
Methods and materials
The methods use patent databases to track university patenting, favoring stable search procedures while accounting for database coverage and timing limits. The authors combine database searches with university portfolio searches and note that recent-year counts may be incomplete.
Methods and materials
- The EPO offers European, WIPO, or worldwide search options, while its portal also supports searches of specific universities' worldwide patent portfolios.The authors note that patent filing routes and possible home-country overrepresentation complicate comparisons.Source: Methods and materials · p. 5
- USPTO searches used each year's applicant names containing “university,” a strategy that misses institutions with names such as MIT.Searching for “Institute of Technology” produced an order-of-magnitude lower recall than searching for “university.”Source: Methods and materials · pp. 5–6
- The authors use USPTO, WIPO, and EPO patent databases, favoring the USPTO's stable national domain over international databases with rapidly changing environments.They describe the EPO as still under construction and the WIPO as stable but rapidly expanding.Source: Methods and materials · pp. 5–6
- Searches use issued-patent publication years because USPTO applications have been published only since 2001; filing counts can exceed grants by more than threefold.Database inclusion may lag publication, mainly affecting the most recent year, and 2008 counts may be underestimated in EPO and WIPO data.Source: Methods and materials · p. 6
Results
US university patenting shows a robust stabilizing and somewhat downward trend, and the pattern is not exclusively American. Most university curves stabilize or decline, with Tokyo University the exception; worldwide UC patenting peaked above its domestic count in 2002.
Results
- The three US measures support a robust stabilizing and somewhat downward patenting trend.The measures use different sources and have different coverage; the online applicant-name search underestimates totals.Source: Figure 1 · p. 7, Results · p. 8
- Worldwide patenting by US universities is considerably higher than domestic patenting, despite the home-advantage effect.Figure 2 covers four major US universities, including MIT and CalTech, which the name-based online indicator omits.Source: Figure 2 · p. 8, Results · p. 8
- The cited passage reports a peak of 468 patents in 2002 for eleven California universities, while the worldwide patent count peaked at 2,230 that same year.Source: Results · p. 9
- Most curves for leading non-American universities stabilize or decline, while Tokyo University continues increasing exponentially.The authors suggest strong national-government incentives may explain Tokyo’s exception.Source: Results · p. 9, Figure 3 · p. 9
- European universities’ patenting took off in the 1990s, after American universities’ mainly domestic patenting had increased during the 1980s.Source: Results · p. 10
Discussion and Conclusions
University patenting continues to gain momentum globally, but the Bayh-Dole effect has faded in advanced economies since the millennium. The authors attribute the change to shifting university-ranking incentives and describe patenting as a possible, non-core function.
Discussion and Conclusions
- University patenting still gains momentum globally, while the authors report declines in domestic and international patenting in the cases discussed.They also report that academic spin-off numbers have declined.Source: Discussion and Conclusions · pp. 10–11
- The authors attribute fading Bayh-Dole effects to rankings that omit patents and spin-offs, shifting competition toward international collaboration and coauthorship.They argue that these activities have become more important in research assessment exercises than university-industry relations.Source: Discussion and Conclusions · p. 10
- The authors question institutional learning as the explanation: patenting's expense was recognized in the 1990s, while technology-transfer-office staffing continued growing.The cited AUTM figure reports staffing growth of more than 5% per year.Source: Discussion and Conclusions · pp. 10–11
- Oxford's patent decline since 2004 persists despite outsourcing most of its patents through ISIS Innovation.The authors include Oxford to address the possibility that universities increasingly outsource patenting.Source: Discussion and Conclusions · p. 11
- The Triple Helix remains valid as universities engage through flexible functional relations; patenting is possible but non-core, while a third mission remains latent.The authors describe a changed social contract among academia, industry, and government.Source: Discussion and Conclusions · p. 11