What is the point of technology transfer?

A fascinating sub plot in the excellent round table that Science|Business held in Paris earlier this month was a seeming difference of opinion between Britain's academic technology transferrers and some of their European colleagues on the reason why they exist. "To make money for the university," seems to be the British line, while Europeans, well some of them, are more interested in the greater good of society. Maybe this has something to do with the way in which universities are managed, and funded.

 

This is not, though, simply a little local issue in Europe. A press release from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business warns that "A debate over who should reap financial returns from publicly funded R&D threatens to disrupt technology transfer from university to industry, according to UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Professor David Mowery."

 

Professor Mowery consider the Californian position how to handle public funding for stem cell research. It seems that the plan is to give the research institutions a larger share of the action.

 

“The direct or near-term benefits from such policies are likely to be very small,” says Professor Mowery. “On the other hand, the risk of such policies having a chilling effect on licensee interest in intellectual property is likely to be great.”

 

The Prof has a new book out, Ivory Tower and Industrial Innovation, "a volume co-authored with Columbia University Professor Richard Nelson, Georgia Institute of Technology Assistant Professor Bhaven Sampat, and University of Michigan Assistant Professor Arvids Ziedonis".

 

The press release quotes Mowery as saying "It's really the unique characteristics of the American educational and industrial complexes that govern innovation." says Mowery. we then read that those unique characteristics include a large, decentralized university system and the world’s biggest venture capital industry, and plenty of movement of people and post-doc students between universities and private research labs.

 

Professor Mowery has researched these things. In particular, he looked at the the consequences of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which made it easier for a university to file for patents and negotiate licenses associated with that patent. It turns out that universities were already licensing before the act came into being.

 

The bottom line, according to Mowery is that "To begin tampering with this legislation on the question of stem cell research in order to set up what amounts to a separate set of laws for this new area of research will dramatically raise overhead costs and serve as a drag on innovation. The relatively small amount of money that will be returned to taxpayers will hardly make it worth it."