Development of Academic Patenting in European Regions – A Large Scale Analysis

In this article, we analyze academic patenting on an unprecedented scale - for 29 European countries. The comprehensive identification phase captures both groups of academic patents, in and outside of the ownership of universities. With stronger patent rights of universities, the share of university-owned patents is increasing faster. Nevertheless, even today, universities own only one third of their patents while the other two thirds remain in the property of individuals and companies. Universities have recently accounted for 13% of regional patent production and compared to firms their contribution to region’s innovation performance remains small. The share of academic patents is higher in Eastern Europe and in regions where innovative companies are lacking, in capital regions, and in regions with a strong tradition in academic patenting. The contribution of universities to the innovation performance of the most innovative regions is relatively small, although there are large differences, and the size of the contribution can vary significantly for similar levels of patent intensity. Given the effects of university research, it has been known since the 1990s that increasing university spending on research is driving innovation on the part of companies and within the region. However, such an effect is limited to high quality research and is most effective in terms of regional policy in poor regions where innovative companies are lacking. In this paper, instead of research expenditure, university patents filed with the EPO represent university research, as other patents are assumed to be a product of companies. We have found that the latter can be predicted by the volume of academic patents.