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Executive Summary The central issue we consider is whether university patent licensing, afforded by the Bayh‐Dole Act, has diverted universities away from their basic research mission. The act, passed in 1980, was intended to stimulate the transfer of federally funded research to industry. While statistics on licensing activity suggest that it has served this purpose, they have also fueled debates as to whether licensing has also led faculty to abandon basic research agendas. We show that, quite to the contrary, when realistic complexities of the research environment are taken into account, it is just as natural to expect basic research productivity to have been enhanced by licensing. Our evidence on disclosure, funding, and publications (their nature and impact) of faculty in 11 universities lends credence to the notion that, rather than diverting faculty research, licensing is part of a flurry of activities that can be associated with fundamental discoveries from fairly basic research.

The authors report results of a survey of industry licensing executives who identified personal contacts between their R&D staff and university personnel as the most important source of university technologies. Journal publications and presentations at professional meetings were also important. While the least important sources were marketing efforts by universities and canvassing of universities, a number of executives did indicate that they were important. For those who do not license-in from universities, the most important reasons for not licensing-in (other than limited overall license-in activities) were reasons related to the nature of university research. A number cited university policies regarding delay of publication and ownership.

The authors report results of a survey of industry licensing executives who identified personal contacts between their R&D staff and university personnel as the most important source of university technologies. Journal publications and presentations at professional meetings were also important. While the least important sources were marketing efforts by universities and canvassing of universities, a number of executives did indicate that they were important. For those who do not license-in from universities, the most important reasons for not licensing-in (other than limited overall license-in activities) were reasons related to the nature of university research. A number cited university policies regarding delay of publication and ownership.

This paper describes results of our survey of licensing at 62 research universities. We consider ownership, income splits, stage of development, marketing, license policies and characteristics, goals of licensing and the role of the inventor in licensing. Based on these results we analyze the relationship between licensing outcomes and both the objectives of the TTO and the characteristics of the technologies. Patent applications grow one-to-one with disclosures, while sponsored research grows similarly with licenses executed. Royalties are typically larger the higher the quality of the faculty and the higher the fraction of licenses that are executed at latter stages of development. Sponsored research is more likely to be included in a license if the new technology is at an early stage of development or if the TTO evaluates it as important. We find that additional disclosures generate smaller percentage increases in licenses, and those increases in licenses generate smaller percentage increases in royalties.

We develop a model of commercial smuggling in which some firms smuggle a portion of the cigarettes they sell. The model is used to estimate the extent of smuggling across state lines and the effects of federal efforts to control smuggling via the Contraband Cigarette Act (CCA). We find that commercial smuggling accounted for three to four percent of all cigarettes sold during the 1970s, a decade of high excise tax differentials. Further, the CCA had the unintentional effect of increasing commercial smuggling, a result consistent with a change in enforcement and modes of smuggling reported subsequent to the Act.

Transfers of biopharmaceutical inventions between firms resets and falsely shortens calculated translation times.