Joaquín M. Azagra-Caro

What do university patent routes indicate at regional level

SummaryWe estimate the determinants of university patents by route in Spain. National patents are an indicator of R&D efforts when we focus on the region, but not of how regions organize their university or joint research structure. International patents are a stronger indicator of R&D efforts, so they express confidence in the potential of the patent. Neither set is an indicator of proximity to the regions competencies in technologies other than for production-intensive sectors, so they will not always foster regional technology transfer. Since the driving forces of national and international patents differ, the use of both is recommended.

In which regions do universities patent and publish more

The main objective of this contribution is to test whether university patents share common determinants with university publications at regional level. We build some university production functions with 1,519 patents and 180,239 publications for the 17 Spanish autonomous regions (NUTS-2) in a time span of 14 years (1988–2001). We use econometric models to estimate their determinants. Our results suggest that there is little scope for regional policy to compensate the production of patents vs. publications through different university or joint research institutional settings. On the contrary, while patents are more reactive to expenditure on R&D, publications are more responsive to the number of researchers, so the sustained promotion of both will make it compatible for regions their joint production. However, standing out in the generation of both outputs requires costly investment in various inputs.

What do patent examiner inserted citations indicate for a region with low absorptive capacity

Most studies of patents citations focus on national or international contexts, especially contexts of high absorptive capacity, and employ examiner citations. We argue that results can vary if we take the region as the context of analysis, especially if it is a region with low absorptive capacity, and if we study applicant citations and examiner-inserted citations separately. Using a sample from the Valencian Community (Spain), we conclude that (i) the use of examiner-inserted citations as a proxy for applicant citations, (ii) the interpretation of non-patent references as indicators of science-industry links, and (iii) the traditional results for geographical localization are not generalizable to all regions with low absorptive capacity.

Do public research organisations own most patents invented by their staff

Technology ownership and knowledge transfer aim at the dissemination of public research results, usually in one direction - from the university or public research organisation (PRO) that produced the results. However, the complementarities between these types of instruments are not clear compared to the bidirectional channels of knowledge exchange. We analyse one PRO in Spain, a country that is peculiar in terms of infrequent changes to the legislation on science and patents and a predominance of PRO-owned over PRO-invented patents, similar to the situation in the USA but different from that in most EU member states. Against this background, knowledge transfer (measured through PRO-invented patents) increases faster than technology ownership (measured through PRO-owned patents). This situation may be damaging to knowledge exchange (measured through PRO co-owned patents). Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.

Smoothing the lies: The distinctive effects of patent characteristics on examiner and applicant citations

Patent citations added by examiners are often used as indicators of technological impact and knowledge flows, despite various criticisms. In this study we analyze the distribution of examiner patent citations according to patent characteristics in order to show their limitations. According to our findings, the number of applicant citations included is dependent on the science-base of the technology. However, this gets masked by the citations added by patent examiners, who smooth the distribution of citations across technology classes and include the same number of citations regardless of whether applicants cite any references. Some researchers have called for the use of applicant rather than examiner patent citations as indicators of technology impact and knowledge flows. Nevertheless, we show that the former also have important caveats, because applicants may increase the number of citations in international patents and when there are coapplicants. The implication is that analysts should consider a context-driven use of citation-based indicators.

Academic Inventors, Scientific Impact and the Institutionalisation of Pasteur's Quadrant in Spain

We rely on a novel database of Spanish author-inventors to explore the relationship between the past patenting experience of academic authors and the scientific impact (citations received and journal prestige) of scientific articles published during 2003–2008 in journals listed in SCOPUS. We also study how such a relationship is affected by differences across academic affiliations, distinguishing between public universities and different types of non-university public research organisations. Our econometric estimations show that scientific impact is positively associated with having authors with past patenting experience as inventors at the European Patent Office. Exceptions are the articles of authors affiliated to new independent public research centres, not tied to the civil service model and oriented to do research that is both excellent and use-inspired. These are also on average the most cited articles.

Interactive vs. non-interactive knowledge production by faculty members

In this article, we develop a model of individual choice to study the determinants of faculty members allocation of effort between interactive and noninteractive activities. This model is tested by using censored and discrete choice econometric models to estimate optimum effort allocated to interactive activities and real interaction. We conclude, first, that individual responds to nonmonetary rather than monetary incentives and to the difficulty of producing noninteractive rather than interactive knowledge. Second, we detect the possible existence of rationing, since optimum effort and real interaction depend on different variables.

Forget R&D pay my coach: young innovative companies and their relations with universities

Young innovative companies (YICs) are attracting attention in their role of industry regenerators. However, we have little information about their relations with universities as sources of information. This paper explores university-industry interaction involving YIC in the Valencian Community, using YIC founders’ personal attributes and motivations as explanatory variables. The Valencian Community has a relatively high degree of university-industry interaction, but surprisingly little technological innovation. A survey of YICs in the region shows that, in their case, firm size does not affect the probability of contracting with universities, and that R&D intensity is not significant if we consider firm founders’ personal characteristics and motivations. YIC founders exploiting market opportunities recognized in previous business activities, and necessity entrepreneurs, are the least likely to interact with universities. We highlight the role of external advisory services to highlight the benefits of universities.

Access to universities' public knowledge: who's more nationalist?

Access to public knowledge is a prerequisite for the good functioning of developed economies. Universities strive and are also requested to contribute to this knowledge both locally and internationally. Traditional studies on the geography of knowledge flows have identified a localisation effect; however, these studies do not use the country as the unit of observation and hence do not explore national patterns. In this paper, we hypothesise that the localisation of university knowledge flows is directly related to share of firm expenditure on research and development. To test this hypothesis, we use references to universities in patent documents as indicators based on a data set of around 20,000 university references, for 37 countries in the period 1990–2007, resulting in panels of around 300–500 observations. We build indicators for the university knowledge flows both inside and outside the applicant country, which we explain as a function of some proxies for national size and research structure based on econometric estimations. We draw some conclusions as to the importance of national business scientific strength for fostering increased domestic university knowledge flows.

Internationalisation of Patents by Public Research Organisations from a Historical and an Economic Perspective

Within the field of the organisation of science, concerns about how academics generate patents tend to focus on a single set of either national or international patents. The main aim of this research is to study both national and international patenting in order to understand their differences. We have approached this issue from both a historical and an economic perspective, using data from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the largest PRO in Spain. Three periods can be distinguished in the CSIC’s history, according to the political context, namely the dictatorship (1939–1975), the transition to democracy (1976–1986) and democracy (1987-to date). The prevailing legal and institutional framework has marked the way in which patenting by CSIC has evolved in each of these periods. The current situation is one in which there is strong internationalisation of patenting activity, and in this most-recent period we explore trends in some of the economic influences on patenting activity. We conclude that the political and normative context may shape the culture of international patenting at PROs like the CSIC and that increasing technological cooperation has supported this internationalisation. However, very often foreign partners are included in the application in order to extend protection abroad for commercial reasons, so their number may not be a good indicator of inventive activity.