Abstract
New public policy enacted in Germany in 2002, intends to increase the number of patent registrations of academic entrepreneurs, and facilitate the commercialization and spillover of innovation generated at public universities. Results from a survey amongst university patentees in two new German Laender, Thuringia and Saxony, accomplished in 2009, are reported focusing on government policy, university support, and the role of technology transfer in an organizational and cultural context. Using a two-step cluster analysis, the survey data are used to profile the patentees and to investigate whether personal attributes and institutional environment contribute to academic entrepreneurship. Empirical findings show that advanced age and non-university working experience contribute significantly to entrepreneurial behavior. New public policy contributes to facilitate patent registrations, but professional expertise for the commercialization of knowledge as well as financial and organizational support schemes needs further improvement. This explains why patent registrations have slightly increased but also why universities report very low levels of commercialization through entrepreneurship. We offer policy recommendations to overcome the existent barriers, among them, the professionalization of technology transfer or targeted marketing for registered patents.
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Notes
Gesetz zur Änderung des Gesetzes über Arbeitnehmererfindungen (ArbNErfG) from January 18, 2002, BGBl. 2002, Teil 1 Nr. 4, S. 414, coming into effect on February 7, 2002.
It is the statutory duty of the German Patent and Trademark Office to grant and administer industrial property rights and provide information on industrial property rights effective in Germany.
At this point, I want to express my gratitude to Maria-Caroline Schroeder and Maria Hoppe who supported the mailing and interviews.
Data retrieved from Statistisches Bundesamt 2008 via www.destatis.de; Thüringer Landesamt für Statistisk 2008 via http://www.tls.thueringen.de; Statistisches Landesamt des Freistaates Sachsen 2008 via http://www.statistik.sachsen.de accessed on August 25, 2010.
http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/reg_prog/po/prog_19.htm; information on expenses by priority axis (ERDF) for Thuringia (convergence region) at http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/index_de.htm.
A press release of the PVA Thuringia from 6 April 2006 indicates that only one patent was commercialised and used for a start-up, in 2005. This was confirmed by the herewith presented survey.
For more information, see http://www.vioso.com.
Siegel et al. (2003: 124) came to similar conclusions deduced from a survey among university scientists, TTO managers and entrepreneurs in 2002. They recommended supporting TTO staff at US universities by hiring licensing officers and managers with substantial business experience and by creating better financial reward systems for TTO officers who have hardly any financial incentive to spur technology transfer.
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Acknowledgments
The research project was initially supported by the German Ministry of Economics (ERP Transatlantic Program). We also thank David B. Audretsch and Helmut J. Geist for inspiring and thoughtful comments and discussions.
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Grimm, H.M., Jaenicke, J. What drives patenting and commerzialisation activity at East German universities? The role of new public policy, institutional environment and individual prior knowledge. J Technol Transf 37, 454–477 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-010-9195-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-010-9195-2
Keywords
- Patents
- Academic entrepreneurship
- University technology transfer
- Commercialization of university research
- Entrepreneurship policy
- Government instruments
- Cluster analysis