University inventions: an investigation into the factors affecting patentability and licensing

The thesis investigates the role of University in patent filing and licensing activities by addressing three main research questions: •RQ1. What is the performance of Italy within the International context in terms of the development of University patent applications? •RQ2. How TTO may affect the probability of a patent being licensed? •RQ3. Which are the success factors of Knowledge Transfer Company? The thesis unfolds in three main chapters with the aims of answering these questions and exploring one little part of the Technology Transfer activities. The research adopts a quantitative approach for the first question, identifying the position of Italian universities in terms of the number of patents filed. The second and third chapter adopts a qualitative approach, using the interview and case study method of research. The first research study involves the collection of the number of patents filed from University per country until 2012, deepening the results for European university patent. In the second and third chapter, the analysis draws the procedure and strategy of the best Italian Technology Transfer Office (TTO) and Knowledge Transfer company (KTC). The data was collected by previous research analysis and direct interviews to TTO/KTC Mangers. For the first research question our results confirm previous studies that have highlighted the low number of university patent filing in Italy compared to the other European countries. Furthermore, the research contribution is twofold. The first contribution concerns the “quality” of Italian university patents that are the most forward cited and with a high rate of granted. Second, the normalization of the number of patents for investment in R&D in the Higher Education Sector shows that, for the same level of public investment, the performance of Italy appears to be the same as the country more performing in patent filing. The practical implications of the second research consisted of some basic conditions/requirements of a patent that is essential for a good valorisation. We address the goal of identifying practices that can increase the licensing activity of Italian universities and are most suitable for all Technology Transfer Office (TTO). The third chapter called the attention to the TTO personnel as a determinant of TTO performance. To sum up we found the importance of a heterogeneous group, with a background in sciences and technology but also the autonomy of the office. Moreover, IP rules and revenue distribution policy are internal condition for a successful Technology Transfer.