This study discusses the opportunities and challenges offered by patents to foster technology transfer from government funded research institutions in developing countries. It presents a review of policy frameworks and recent policy changes aimed to foster academic patenting and technology transfer in low- and middle-income countries. It then analyzes patenting activities by universities and public research organizations and compares these trends with respect to high-income countries. This analysis is complemented with an assessment of the current state of patenting and technology commercialization practices in a selected group of technology transfer offices.
Academic inventions are becoming a more important source of technological innovation and a basis for new business start-ups. Universities and other public research organisations (PROs) are racing to patent and license inventions and other forms of ...
This book proposes an approach to the patent-competition interface for developing countries. It puts forward a theoretical framework after canvassing relevant policy considerations and examines the many reasons why patent protection is not essential for generating innovation incentives in developing countries. These include the tendency of the patent system to overcompensate innovators, the availability of other appropriation mechanisms for innovators to monetize their innovations, and the lack of appropriate technological capacity in many developing countries to take advantage of the incentives generated by the patent system. It also argues that developing countries with a small population need not pay heed to the impact of their patent system on the incentives of foreign innovators. It then proposes a classification of developing countries into production countries, technology adaptation countries, and proto-innovation countries and argues that dynamic efficiency considerations take on different meanings for developing countries depending on their technological capacities. For the vast majority of developing countries bereft of meaningful innovation capacity, foreign technology transfer is the main vehicle for technological progress. The chief dynamic policy consideration for these countries is hence incentives for technology transfer instead of innovation incentives. There are three main means of voluntary technology transfer: importation of technological goods, foreign direct investment, and technology licensing. Competition law regulation of patent exploitation practices interacts with these three means of technology transfer in different ways and an appropriate approach to the patent-competition interface for these countries needs to take these into account. Distilling all these considerations, the book proposes a development stage-specific approach to the patent-competition interface for developing countries. The approach is then applied to a number of patent exploitation practices, including unilateral refusal to deal, patent tying, excessive pricing for pharmaceuticals, reverse payment settlements, and restrictive licensing practices.
Who owns inventions developed at US research universities? And who benefits from the current ownership regime? To answer these questions, Anna Marion Bieri discusses the transformation which has taken place in academia in regard to the involvement and commercialisation of patents and the effect university patenting has had on the academic mission and the scientific commons. Special emphasis is placed on the history and implementation of the Bayh-Dole Act - a widely-discussed law which facilitated the patenting and commercialisation of federally funded university inventions. On this basis, the author explores who should benefit from university inventions and how the current ownership regime should be modified to achieve this purpose. Finally, Anna Marion Bieri proposes that universities employ patents strategically in accordance with their research strengths.
WIPO's World Intellectual Property Report 2011 focuses on the Changing Face of Innovation. It describes key trends in the innovation landscape - including the increasingly open, international and collaborative character of the innovation process; the causes of the increased demand for IP rights; and the rising importance of technology markets.
In order to attain its objective of becoming a high-income economy by 2020, Malaysia is engaged in efforts to enhance the performance of its innovation system. A range of challenges need to be addressed and different policy tools can help in this respect. For this purpose the national ...
This paper provides an analysis of global patenting trends using the most comprehensive data currently available. Among other things, it finds that subsequent patent filings – additional filings of the same invention, mostly in additional countries – contributed considerably to the growth in filings worldwide, pointing to globalization as one important driver of filing growth. However, no single factor can fully explain the marked increase in the use of the patent system.
