University autonomy, IP legislation and academic

patenting: Italy, 1996-2006

Francesco Lissoni1,2, Michele Pezzoni2,3, Bianca Potì4, Sandra Romagnosi5

1 GREThA – Université Bordeaux IV - France2 CRIOS – Università "L. Bocconi", Milan - Italy

3 Dept of Economics, Università Milano-Bicocca - Italy 4 CERIS-CNR, Rome - Italy

5 Parco ScientificoUniversità "Tor Vergata", Rome - Italy  

APE-INV Final ConferenceParis, 3-4 / 9 / 2013

Motivation & Research QuestionsContribute to recent literature on academic patenting in Italy (Europe) by:

1. What/Any trend in academic patenting?• Weight of academic patenting on total domestic

patenting• Ownership: Universities’ share of IP over academic

inventions (vs individuals’, PROs’, and business companies’ share)

2. Exploring links between (1) and two policy changes:• The granting of autonomy to universities (incl.

financial autonomy), in 1989 (effective kick-off: 1995)• The introduction of the professor privilege, in 2001

Reasons for focusing on universities’ autonomy

• Policy: widespread diffusion of autonomy-granting/enhancing reforms in all Europe (e.g. “loi Pecresse” in France, 2007); large universities’ quest for more autonomy (e.g. EUA’s report, 2009)

• Scholarly research - in sociology: “entrepreneurial university” (Clark, 1993); in economics: autonomy&competition perfomance link (Aghion et al., 2009)

Increasing emphasis on “third mission”: is it materializing? (weight of academic patenting)

Decrease of “block grant” funding project funding & technology transfer as additional sources of revenues: do universities look at IPRs as a source of revenue?

Changes in academic profession’s status (from civil servants to university employees): are universities seizing professors’ IPR assets?

Reasons for focusing on the professor privilege

• Policy: 1. wave of abolitions in German-speaking and

Scandinavian countries since 2000 inefficient legal institution, standing in the way of commercialization of academic research results

2. BUT Italy has introduced it in 2001 incentive-setting justification BUT contradiction with autonomy granting to universities

• Scholarly research – some recent advocacy for the privilege (Kenney, 2009)

Conclusions /1A. The absolute number of academic patents has increased, but

(i) their weight on total patenting by domestic inventors has not

(ii) the share of university-owned acad. patents has increased

B. The probability to observe an academic patent depends on:

- the technology considered- the science-intensity of research, - and the characteristics of the local innovation system After controlling for these determinants:

(iii) the conditional probability to observe an academic patent has declined over time.

Conclusions /2C. The rise of university ownership is explained by:

(iv) the increasing share of public vs. private R&D(v) the increased autonomy of Italian universities

introduction of explicit IP regulations

D. The introduction of the professor privilege in 2001 had no impact at all on either trends opposed and defeated by universities, thanks to their newly gained autonomy

Methodology for data collection1. Name disambiguation of inventors (EPO patent

applications) free inventor database: http://www.ape-inv.disco.unimib.it

2. Professor-inventor name matching: 3 professors’ cohorts inventors 1996-2006 [academic patent patent with at least 1 academic inventors]

3. Filtering of false matches by: (i) automatic criteria (ii) past surveys (iii) ongoing survey (iv) probability estimates of no-responses

University autonomy in Italy: a quick look

* * *

The professor privilege in Italy: an even quicker look

University autonomy• L.168/1989: basic principles and creation of ad-hoc

Ministry• Several laws/decrees 1990-1996. • Financial autonomy

1.Key block grant: FFO ("Fondo di Finanziamento Ordinario"): starts at 90% of all revenues automatic decline

2.Universities become free to collect other revenues great heterogeneity

3. No systematic tie with university-industry technology transfer policy

4.(for a while) GERD grows faster than BERD (Epidemic) diffusion of IP regulations (IP_STATUTE) and

TTOs at the university-level Little correlation between the two diffusion processes

Weight of block funds (FFO) and public funds for scientific reserach on Italian Universities’ totale revenues (sources: AQUAMETH, CNSVU)

Diffusion of IPR statutes and TechTransfer Offices in Italian Universities (sources: own elaboration on NETVAL survey; CNSVU survey)

The professor privilege• Introduced in 2001

• Unsolicited, indeed resisted by universities (unsuccessfully at legal level; possibly successfully at IP regulation level)

• Reformed in 2005 (abolished for research co-sponsored by industry)

Econometric Analysis• 2-step Heckman Probit• STEP1: probability of an Italian patent to be

academic, 1996-2006 as a function of:- time (year dummies)- patent characteristics (IPC class, NPL backward citations,

nr inventors)- regional innovation system: BERD/GDP; universities’ and

PROs’ share of R&D- regional university system: diffusion of university IP

statutes and TTO; weight of FFO over total revenues; Estimate of academic patenting trend, conditional on

changing environment

• STEP2: probability of an academic patent to be owned by the inventor’s university, 1996-2006 as a function of:- time(year dummies)- patent characteristics & regional innovation system- university’s characteristics:

- fixed effect (dummies)- time-variant:

- adoption of IP statute- TTO opening- weight of FFO over total revenues (FFO_RATIO);

Estimate of ownership trend, as a function of increasing autonomy & conditional on changing environment

Similar estimates for individual & business ownership

KEY RESULTSSTEP1 (probability of an Italian patent to be academic)

- negative trend after controlling for patent characteristics (less-than expected composition effect)

- “classic” results for patent characteristics- Positive effect of both BERD/GDP (demand side) and

universities’ share of R&D (supply side)- No effect of FFO_RATIO

KEY RESULTSSTEP2 (probability of university ownership)

- positive trend after all controls ( unexplained trend)- “classic” results for patent characteristics- Positive effect of universities’ share of R&D (supply side)- No effect of FFO_RATIO- Positive effect of IP statute adoption vs no effect of TTO

opening

Further research1) The value of academic patents, by type of ownership

Lower? Lissoni and Montobbio (2013) + role of universities in weaker regions

Higher? Learning effect & increased autonomy ( see Flemish case)

2) Changes of property and markets for patents

3) Lessons for evaluation exercise (e.g. ANVUR) Which patents do count? Which patents shall we count?

® University-owned patents are a (non-representative?) subset of all academic patents

® Counting university-owned patents may generate perverse incentives in favour of patent filing / aggressive stances towards business sponsors & faculty

® Use of public data such as PatStat / APE-INV