Does Productive Mean Active? The Behavior of Occasional and Serial Academic Inventors in Patenting Processes

Previous literature has attributed differences in individuals’ inventive productivity to a range of environmental, organizational and individual traits. However, the behavior of individuals with different inventive productivity has not been empirically explored in detail. Based on interviews with twenty Swedish academic inventors of diverse patenting experience, this paper analyses how serial and occasional inventors acted in patent initiation, patent application and subsequent patent management for specific inventions. Two modes of behavior are identified: passive and active. Individuals’ inventive productivity was not aligned with behavioral mode, with both modes of behavior exhibited by occasional as well as serial academic inventors. Individual academic inventors also varied in mode of behavior across different patent processes. These findings suggest that commonly used volume-based classifications of academic inventors obscure potentially relevant behavioral differences. This insight has implications for contemporary policy and organizational practice. It also highlights the need for further investigation of when academic inventors assume an active or passive mode of behavior in processes of academic commercialization.

Academic patents and entrepreneurial intention. To what extent are other knowledge transfer mechanisms affected in a Mexican university?

This research aims to expand the explanations about the debate on academic entrepreneurship and other knowledge transfer mechanisms, to respond to what extent entrepreneurial intention affects the diffusion and dissemination of knowledge in a Mexican university. The lack of indicators of commercial activity, leads us to propose the analysis of a pre-commercial stage of technology that we call entrepreneurial intention. After the literature review, we present a database of academic inventors in patents granted to the university, identifying patenting with an entrepreneurial intention, following Lomas (1993) knowledge transfer taxonomy. Data about publications and received citations by academic inventors is also considered for knowledge diffusion; as well as the supervision of end-of-degree projects in undergraduate and graduate studies; before and after the patent was granted, for knowledge dissemination. Using a binomial model, we estimated two data sets, one for the period 1984-2000 and the second for 2001-2020. Our findings reveal, an average increase of 60% in the number of patents obtained. We also found that the characteristics of the research group are significant in both models, but in the 2001-2020 period it is more important to integrate foreign inventors than patenting with firms, the dissemination of knowledge is more significant and has greater importance in the model. To respond to what extent entrepreneurial intention affects the diffusion and dissemination of knowledge, greater attention should be paid to the diffusion of knowledge since in both models the variable that represents publications after patenting is not significant. The explanation about the dissemination of knowledge improves substantially from one period to another.

How the U.S. Courts View the Rights of Individual Patentees: A Case Study

This article presents a case study of patent litigation involving an individual academic inventor and three manufacturers that were using her invention and marketing it worldwide. The article provides an overview of the invention, the patent covering it, and the manner in which the case was handled at different levels in the U.S. courts. A brief discussion of the recent trends in restricting patent litigation and some recommendations for improving and streamlining the process are provided. In addition, some of the possible impacts of implementing recently suggested measures that bear on the ability of individual and academic inventors to assert their patent rights are also discussed.

The State of the Academy: Commentary on the Growth Of the National Academy of Inventors

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) held the Eighth Annual Meeting of the NAI in Houston, TX, in April 2019. The event, whose theme was "Connecting the Innovation Community," consisted of lectures, presentations, and discussions on the most pressing issues facing academic invention today. In his State of the Academy address, Paul R. Sanberg, president of the NAI, discussed the year's advances, including two new initiatives launched in 2018: the Senior Members program and the Global Academic Inventors Network. He also provided updates on existing programs, such as the NAI Fellows program and the Chapter program.

THE ROLES OF ACADEMIC INVENTORS IN MEDICAL INNOVATION PROCESSES: EXPLORING THE INFLUENCE OF IPR OWNERSHIP AND IP NATURE

This paper analyses four medical innovation processes originating from Stanford and Uppsala universities with the purpose of understanding how intellectual property rights (IPR) ownership and intellectual property (IP) nature influence the behaviour of academic inventors. We analyse this behaviour through the roles enacted and evaluate the requirements the roles pose by developing a method to assess the requirements of individual roles, which we label as role intensity. We find that both IPR ownership and IP nature can influence the academic inventors’ roles and role intensities. In contrast to assumptions in research and policy, we find that IPR ownership does not influence the roles and role intensities in a remarkable way. We also find support that research and policy should distinguish between patentable and non-patentable inventions in the field of medical invention as these two types of IP nature are associated with different roles and role intensities. These findings contribute to the literature on commercialisation of science and innovation management by demonstrating the importance of IP nature in influencing the roles of inventors. Managerial and policy implications are provided.

Factors affecting the propensity of academic researchers in Mexico to become inventors and their productivity

<p>We aim to answer the following research questions: Which is the propensity of Mexican Research National System –sni- researchers from universities and institutes to become inventors in patents granted to their institutions? What are the personal, institutional and innovation nature factors which have influence in such propensity? Which factors favor the inventive productivity of the academic inventors? According to the outcomes of three econometric models proposed, using micro data of uspto patents during 1980- 2013 and the sni researchers individual and institutional data, our main findings are: the sni researchers propensity of being inventors of their institutions’ patents is marginal but it is higher when they belong to institutions with an intellectual property regulation. Also, this propensity is associated with: the researcher’s age and its sni level, as personal factors; the institution size and the PhD quality programs approved by conacyt, as institutional factors; finally, technological amplitude, invention scope, the technological collaboration and the importance of the invention, as factors of the innovation nature. While, the research team mixed of women and men and the technology transfer office<em> </em>have not still influence in the <em>pip</em>. Finally, we have tested that the <em>age</em> has influence in the inventors’ productivity in a positive sense and the <em>square_age</em> affects in a negative way. Also, the invention scope<em> </em>and the technological collaboration, have a positive impact. But not, the level of sni researchers-inventors and the sni scientific research area, and neither the PhD academic quality programs.</p>