This paper draws on institutional theory to explain the rise of university patenting in the USA. While observers have traditionally attributed this development to the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, recent research has shown that university patenting was increasing throughout the 1970s and argued that the Act's impact was less than has generally been assumed. This paper attempts to reconcile these opposing positions by explaining the rise of university patenting as a process of institutionbuilding. Beginning in the 1960s, a skilled actor within the federal bureaucracy created a proto-institution that simplified university patenting and encouraged the development of a community of university patent administrators. In the 1970s, that community in turn allied itself with government proponents of patent policy liberalization and representatives of small business in a successful effort to pass the Bayh-Dole Act. The Act itself should be seen not as creating modern technology transfer, but rather as a final step in a state-driven process of institutionalization that was already well under way by 1980. The case is used to discuss how an institutional approach, which is infrequently seen in STS, can sometimes be useful to it.Keywords Bayh-Dole Act, commercialization, government, institutional theory, patents, technology transfer, universities
Why Did Universities Start Patenting?Institution-Building and the Road to the Bayh-Dole Act
Elizabeth Popp BermanAcademic science, once relatively insulated from market forces, has seen the Mertonian ideal of communism partially displaced by an argument that science, in order to be fully applied, must often be privately owned. In keeping with this logic, universities in the USA have been patenting faculty inventions in increasing numbers for the last several decades. University patenting was once considered inappropriate by many, who saw it as transferring a public good into private hands. Today, however, the practice is widely accepted and encouraged on the grounds that private ownership is often required in order to provide sufficient incentive for investment in the development of scientific inventions. A growing body of work examines how universities' patent practices have changed and to what effect