This paper analyses the development of universities' patent applications in Germany before and after the abolition of the 'professors' privilege' in 2002. By means of a database with all patent applications of German universities with professors among the inventors (1990-2006), systematic...

Academic inventions have to be transferred to industry to become an innovation. Scientists face multiple options for this transfer, from informal knowledge transfers to patents, licences, and spin-offs. These transfer channels require different efforts and inhibit different degrees of...

We examine ownership patterns of German university-invented patents before and after the abolition of the "professors' privilege" in 2002 to explore how the legal change affected patenting activities. Our data show a shift from individually-owned and firm-owned patents to university-owned...

This policy paper on science-industry technology transfer has four emphases: the rationale of recent changes in German science policy, the contribution of diverse transfer channels to economic development as well as the role of IPR in that context, the differences in the institutional framework...

The paper studies the patent productivity of scientists over their life cycle. The incentives for patenting and for publishing are compared and how they shape life cycle productivity. In most empirical studies, publication productivity decreases at the end of the scientific career. In contrast,...