Institutional Changes and the Commercialization of Academic Knowledge : A Study of Italian Universities' Patenting Activities between 1965 and 2002

We use patent applications and their extensions filed by Italian Universities between 1965 and 2002 to analyze their responses to institutional and organizational changes on IPRs regulations. Our results show that the number of patents, as well as foreign extensions or direct applications for foreign patents raised substantially with the level of autonomy granted to Universities. These growing patterns are reinforced by the adoption of internal IPR regulations, which also determined an increase in the number of sole-owned patents and a reduction of the number of co-inventors. Implications for technology transfer policies for Universities in Europe are discussed