The management of inventions in research institutions: An international perspective on the ownership of scientific discoveries

The book investigates the factors that impinge upon the IP ownership of inventions developed by scientists at research institutions and explores how IP ownership influences the entrepreneurial endeavor of research institutions. The book adopts an international perspective and exploits fine-grained data at the invention level. The analysis points out several interesting results: i) a large share of patents arising from research performed at research institutions is not owned by these institutions; ii) the enactment of a university-centered system of IP ownership at the national level significantly affects the propensity of these institutions to retain IP ownership; iii) the entrepreneurial endeavor of research institutions is concentrated in a narrow set of technological domains; iv) the invention background of patents developed at research institutions does not systematically vary among ownership types; v) the existence of contract-based agreements between universities and firms may increase the chances of observing a patent grant only when the business organization retains ownership rights for the scientific discovery. The managerial implications of these findings for practitioners, policy makers, and researchers are discussed.