TY - JOUR
T1 - Can Universities Profit from General Purpose Inventions?
T2 - The Case of Canadian Nanotechnology Patents
AU - Barirani, Ahmad
AU - Beaudry, Catherine
AU - Agard, Bruno
PY - 2017/7
Y1 - 2017/7
N2 - The lack of control over downstream assets can hinder universities’ ability to extract rents from their inventive activities. We explore this possibility by assessing the relationship between invention generality and renewal decisions for a sample of Canadian nanotechnology patents. Our results show that general purpose inventions enjoy a longer legal life. Although private sector organizations renew their patents at a higher rate than universities, the gap between the two sectors decreases as invention generality increases. However, there is little indication that the most general purpose inventions owned by universities survive for longer than the ones owned by private sector organizations.
AB - The lack of control over downstream assets can hinder universities’ ability to extract rents from their inventive activities. We explore this possibility by assessing the relationship between invention generality and renewal decisions for a sample of Canadian nanotechnology patents. Our results show that general purpose inventions enjoy a longer legal life. Although private sector organizations renew their patents at a higher rate than universities, the gap between the two sectors decreases as invention generality increases. However, there is little indication that the most general purpose inventions owned by universities survive for longer than the ones owned by private sector organizations.
KW - University-industry linkages
KW - General purpose technologies
KW - Nanotechnology
KW - Technology transfer
KW - Markets for technology
KW - Complementary assets
KW - University-industry linkages
KW - General purpose technologies
KW - Nanotechnology
KW - Technology transfer
KW - Markets for technology
KW - Complementary assets
U2 - 10.1016/j.techfore.2017.01.021
DO - 10.1016/j.techfore.2017.01.021
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85015849033
SN - 0040-1625
VL - 120
SP - 271
EP - 283
JO - Technological Forecasting and Social Change
JF - Technological Forecasting and Social Change
ER -