Knowledge exploitation, open science, and firm strategy in a changing intellectual property rights environment

Since the late 1970s, patenting of university research has gone from nearly non-existent to a significant focus of many research universities, in part due to the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. This represents a fundamental change from the norms of "open science" which promote quick, full, public disclosure of research results. Many important university research results are now protected by intellectual property rights, and use of these research results is limited to the patent holders and licensees. Since university research is an important input to the innovation process in many industries, this potential "fencing off" of upstream research has drawn interest.; This dissertation examines several aspects of the knowledge transfer interface between universities and industry. I explore the effect of the increase in patenting by universities on the use of published scientific research in industry and find evidence that this research became increasingly channelled to some firms relative to others as university patenting increased. These results are particularly strong in areas of technology that traditionally rely more on university research as an input to the innovation process. At the individual level, I examine the relationship between the patenting and publication behavior of university faculty members to evaluate concerns about restricted dissemination of university research. The evidence does not support this concern.; Viewing knowledge transfer from the perspective of the recipient firms, the final chapter explores whether specific firm research activities are associated with enhanced exploitation of university research for firms in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. I present evidence that firms that engage in more internal basic research and that collaborate more with university scientists exploit more public science in their own patented inventions. These firms also have a shorter lag time between the knowledge they are exploiting and their own new patented inventions. Exploitation of public science and shorter lag times are found to be positively related to the market value of the firm.