Collaborative Research: Economic Analysis of Intellectual Property Protection Mechanisms for Research Partnerships

自20世纪80年代初以来，在包括竞争节奏和联邦政策在内的众多因素的推动下，工业界以及工业界和大学合作伙伴之间的合作研究协议迅速增长。这些伙伴关系的成员试图利用其互补资源，以创造新的或共享的技术知识。每个成员都希望从这种关系中获利；因此，在进入之前，必须确保所有成员能够有效地利用结果。1984年的《美国国家合作研究法案》（National Cooperative Research Act）要求研究合资企业的各方从其条款中寻求利益，向联邦政府提交通知。这项研究将使用从这些文件以及其他来源获得的信息开发的两个数据库，以检查知识产权影响这些复杂安排的方式。这些研究人员将使用调查和访谈来收集关于在美国合资研究企业的大样本中使用的知识产权保护机制的信息。调查和访谈将涵盖各种私营部门（国内和国际）和大学合作伙伴。该项目的主要目标是了解正在使用的保护机制以及它们在这些风险中扮演的角色。另一个目标是朝着理解一种或另一种机制对特定目的的相对有效性的方向发展，包括未能组建合资企业或未能完成研究，以及组织参与未来合资企业的意愿。结果将对研究合资企业的参与者和科学和技术决策者有用。这些活动将包括出版物和有不同参与者参加的讲习班。

Collaborative research agreements in industry and between industry and university partners have grown rapidly since the early 1980s, encouraged by numerous factors including the pace of competition and Federal policy. Members of these partnerships try to exploit their complementary resources in order to create new or shared technical knowledge. Each member wishes to profit from the relationship; so before entering it, all the members must be assured that they will be able to appropriate the results effectively. The US National Cooperative Research Act of 1984 required the parties of a research joint venture seeking benefits from its provisions to file notifications with the Federal government. This research will use two data bases developed with information from these filings as well as other sources to examine the ways in which intellectual property rights affect these complex arrangements. The investigators will use surveys and interviews to collect information about the intellectual property protection mechanisms used in a large sample of US-based research joint ventures. The surveys and interviews will cover a variety of both private sector (domestic and international) and university partners. The major goal of the project is to understand what protection mechanisms are in use and what role they play in these ventures. Another goal is to move towards an understanding of the relative effectiveness of one or another mechanism for a particular purpose, including the failure to form a venture or for it to reach research completion and the willingness of organizations to engage in future ventures. Results will be useful to participants in research joint ventures and to science and technology policy makers. They will include publications and a workshop involving diverse participants.