Patenting Behavior of Academic Scientists and Engineers: A Micro-level Analysis of the Factors that Determine the Production of University Patents

关于大学专利的研究主要集中在对大学专利数量和质量的时间变化、其影响和利用以及按类别分布的综合分析。在微观层面上进行了最小规模的系统性研究，以调查个人研究人员、组织和制度因素如何解释学术科学家的专利行为。这项由科学与社会计划资助的研究开发了一个大学专利出现的理论模型，该模型包括三个决策阶段，由个人、学科和组织约束以及由此产生的进行商业相关研究导致专利的动机。这三个决策阶段是：1)与专利发明有关的项目选择；2)发明披露；3)发明人在披露后参与其发明的开发。这项研究的数据是通过一项全国性的在线调查产生的，随机抽样的大学科学家被列为2000年至2006年期间分配给美国大学的专利的发明人，以及发明家的合著者中没有发明专利的随机抽样。该调查以电子方式嵌入专利数据，作为刺激特定专利响应的一种手段。该项目的结果提高了对大学中存在的复杂专利决策背景的了解，并确定了鼓励或限制专利活动的特定背景要素。根据常见的行为和活动模式对大学专利进行描述，有助于未来关于是否以及如何鼓励大学校园专利活动的政策辩论。

Research on university patenting has focused primarily on aggregate analyses of temporal changes in quantity and quality of university patents, their impact and utilization, and their distribution by class. Minimal systematic research has been conducted at the micro-level to investigate how individual researcher, organizational, and institutional factors explain patenting behavior of academic scientists. This study funded by the Science and Society Program develops a theoretical model of the emergence of a university patent consisting of three decision stages, mediated by individual, disciplinary, and organizational constraints and the resulting motivation to undertake commercially relevant research leading to patents. The three decision stages are: 1) project selection related to patented invention; 2) invention disclosure; and 3) the post-disclosure involvement of inventors with the development of their inventions. Data for the study are generated through a national online survey to a random sample of university scientists who are listed as inventors of patents assigned to US universities between 2000 and 2006 and to a random sample of co-authors of inventors who have not patented an invention. The survey electronically embeds patent data as a means of stimulating patent-specific responses.The results of the project improve knowledge about the complex patent decision context that exists in universities and identify specific contextual elements that encourage or constrain patenting activity. The characterization of the university patents in terms of common patterns of behaviors and activities contributes to future policy debates about whether and how to encourage patenting activities on university campuses.