Exploring the “value” of academic patents: IP management practices in UK universities and their implications for Third-Stream indicators

Abstract

Third-Stream activities have become increasingly important in the UK. However, valuing them in a meaningful way still poses a challenge to science and technology analysts and policy makers alike. This paper reviews the general literature on "patent value" and assesses the extent to which these established measures, including patent citation, patent family, renewal and litigation data, can be applied to the university context. Our study examines indicators of patent value for short and mid-term evaluation purposes, rather than indicators that suffer from long time lags. We also explore the extent to which differences in IP management practices at universities may have an impact on the validity and robustness of possible indicators. Our observations from four UK universities indicate that there are considerable differences between universities as to how they approach the IP management process, which in turn has implications for valuing patents and how they track activity in this area. In their current form, data as collected by universities are not sufficiently robust to serve as the basis for evaluation or resource allocation. IntroductionOver the past few years, many countries have taken measures to promote knowledge and technology transfer between universities and industry. In the UK, such an activity is widely regarded as a Third-Stream activity. Exploiting university research results and knowledge often involves setting up a technology and licensing infrastructure nationally M. S. MEYER, P. TANG: The "value" of academic patents 416 Scientometrics 70 (2007) as well as locally. However, in the UK, there remain a few universities that do not have any type of technology transfer function. Along with such an emphasis on Third-Stream activities goes a need for developing indicators that effectively capture the value generated by such activities, particularly for accountability purposes. As public funds are increasingly being dedicated to develop knowledge and technology transfer functions in universities, the UK Government is increasingly requiring measures to demonstrate some form of return on its investment. This paper reviews the progress that has been made regarding measuring the value of university patents, which continues to remain a key performance indicator.Estimating the value of patents has been a well-researched topic in the legaleconomic literature, in which various measures have been developed. These are based on patent citation, (foreign) application, licensing, and patent renewal data. Litigated patents are also increasingly associated with high value, namely because of the prohibitive costs involved. While some measures can be derived from patent data directly, others are more difficult to trace. Furthermore, much of the research has focused on corporate patents. On the other hand, studies exploring the value of university patents (e.g. by way of tracing patent citations) are rather "historical" in their orientation and tend to cover periods of patenting undertaken in the past and thus do not adeq...

Changes to university IPR regulations in Europe and the impact on academic patenting

“…For example, in the first group, the UK adopted a unique approach to technology transfer. Entrepreneurial activities in universities began to increase in the mid-1980s (Meyer and Tang, 2007), when heavy budget cuts forced universities to adopt more proactive approaches to revenue generation, which included the establishment of TTO. In the mid-1990s, government began actively supporting university "third mission" activities (Meyer and Tang, 2007).…”

“…Entrepreneurial activities in universities began to increase in the mid-1980s (Meyer and Tang, 2007), when heavy budget cuts forced universities to adopt more proactive approaches to revenue generation, which included the establishment of TTO. In the mid-1990s, government began actively supporting university "third mission" activities (Meyer and Tang, 2007). The main policy instrument was allocation of Higher Education Funding Council funds through calls for tender under various schemes for seed funding and entrepreneurial activity and the creation of official "third stream" funding for knowledge transfer activities, allocated on the basis of knowledge transfer performance measured by the annual Higher Education-Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey.…”

Foresight and the third mission of universities: the case for innovation system foresight

“…At the moment there are three interpretations of the concept of universities' third mission (Molas-Gallart & Castro-Martínez 2007). One is associated with a 'third source of income' or a third stream of revenue related to knowledge transfer and licensing intellectual property rights (IPR) (e.g., Meyer & Tang, 2007) in collaboration with the private sector, private foundations, the European Union, etc. This is in contrast to universities' two traditional sources of income, namely, core appropriations direct from the public and funding from public research councils.…”

The lifespan of semiconductor patents by assignee and patent characteristics

“…Studies have reported that assigned and litigated patents are more valuable than normal patents [18,19]. Therefore, these characteristics of patents were included in the model to verify their influence on patent maintenance time.…”