Senior researchers just bypass TTOs – means no tradeoff with tech development

[Lisa & Andrew, “How do patent incentives affect university researchers?,” International Review of Law and Economics Volume 61, Elsevier, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144818819302522?via%3Dihub, 7-16-24, GDI – Tom Huynh]

*TTO = technology transfer office

Thus, interview data suggest that, in the past, patenting was not well supported or even considered at the university, and therefore regularly patents were given away to companies. The establishment of the TTO, probably in line with an overall trend to be more focused on university IP, impacted the current preference for contract research, which is that the patent should be assigned to both the university and the company. Yet, despite this preferential IP strategy, interviewees acknowledge that there are also cases in which inventors willingly bypass the TTO, as one department head stated: “Sometimes I overhear researchers saying: If I go to TTO, I will … lose part of my autonomy … but also part of my money, as a major part does not go to me but to TTO.” At the same time, as a TTO manager admits, sometimes inventors or companies get the possibility to own university IP: “In several cases, we have granted the inventor the patent, as a deliberate choice. At the same time, it is not the preferred option as it could give an incentive to underestimate the value of the invention or to reduced collaboration [with TTO].”

In Model 3, the variable Academic rank is added to the regression. Some of our analysis results confirm the negative effect of academic rank on university ownership of the academic patent, which partially supports Hypothesis 2. Hypothesis 2 stated that the higher the academic rank of the (lead-)inventor, the more likely he/she will file the patent outside the university. The interview data shed more light on these highly-ranked individuals who bypass the university system. First, some professors admit that they have granted companies the right to patent their inventions, because it was too cumbersome to deal with the patenting procedure at the university or because the company paid for the patent or the research that led to the patent. As one professor stated: “We have sold these [patents] to the industry. … An external partner has written the patents, we delivered the content, but patent specialists of these companies filed the patents.” Another interviewee stated: “When I consider the TTO, they do things too broadly and as a result lack sufficient expertise to say for each domain: you can patent this, and you can't do that. The university is so broad and diversified, it is nearly impossible to do that, and that requires experts on those positions. It may be possible with help from externals, but hiring an external expert is very expensive.” Thus, it seems that higher-ranked researchers feel relatively at ease with giving critique to the university service and with bypassing the institutional rules.