The availability of knowledge is an essential factor for an economy in global competition. Companies realise innovations by creating and implementing new knowledge. Sources of innovative ideas are partners in the production network but also new employees coming from another company or academia....

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...

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,...

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...

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...