Paula Schliessler

Individual Versus Institutional Ownership of University-Discovered Inventions

We examine how the ownership of intellectual property rights influences patenting of university-discovered inventions. In 2002, Germany transferred patent rights from faculty members to their universities. To identify the effect on the volume of patenting, we exploit the researcher-level exogeneity of the 2002 policy change using a novel researcher-level panel database that includes a control group not affected by the law change. For professors who had existing industry connections, the policy decreased patenting, but for those without prior industry connections, it increased patenting. Overall, fewer university inventions were patented following the shift from inventor to institutional ownership.

Knowledge Creates Markets: The Influence of Entrepreneurial Support and Patent Rights on Academic Entrepreneurship

We use an exogenous change in German Federal law to examine how entrepreneurial support and the ownership of patent rights influence academic entrepreneurship. In 2002, the German Federal Government enacted a major reform called Knowledge Creates Markets that set up new infrastructure to facilitate university-industry technology transfer and shifted the ownership of patent rights from university researchers to their universities. Based on a novel researcher-level panel database that includes a control group not affected by the policy change, we find no evidence that the new infrastructure resulted in an increase in start-up companies by university researchers. The shift in patent rights may have strengthened the relationship between patents on university-discovered inventions and university start-ups; however, it substantially decreased the volume of patents with the largest decrease taking place in faculty-firm patenting relationships.

The Effect of Patent Litigation on Firm Performance – Evidence for Germany

I analyse how patent litigation outcome in Germany a ffects the performance of the disputing fi rms by interpreting changes in a fi rms credit rating as a proxy for changes in fi rm performance. The results match theoretical considerations on the functioning of the bifurcated German patent litigation system. The separation of litigation and invalidity decisions, resulting in invalidity decisions taking much longer than decisions on infringement, provides patent holders with a window of opportunity to enforce patents that may later be invalidated. This shifts a major share of the immediate risk to the defendant and allocates bargaining power to the plainti ff. The estimation results provide support for this incongruity. Plainti ffs on average profi t from litigation while defendants agreeing up on a settlement deal lose as much as defendants losing in trial. I further show that small, inexperienced defendant firms are at a disadvantage when dealing with litigation.