Kuok Teong Ong
Washington State University
Aishwarya Sathyanarayan
University of Minnesota
The passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980 has given universities and research institutes the right to retain titles to inventions resulting from federally sponsored research. As a result, many universities and research institutes have enhanced their capacity to effectively conduct patenting and licensing of technologies. The acceleration of technology transfer activities (TTA) are reflected by the increase in the membership of the Association of University Technology managers (AUTM) from 113 in 1979 to more than 3,200 currently. According to the 2011 AUTM Licensing Survey, 591 new products and 670 startup companies were created in one year alone under Bayh-Dole while 3,927 university spinoffs are in operation across the U.S. today [1]. Since 1980, more than 8,788 new companies have been established to commercialize academic inventions and 3,927 startups are still in operation at the end of 2011, while university patent licensing has contributed approximately $836 billion to the U.S. gross domestic output and supported 3 million jobs between 1996 and 2010 [1, 2]. Apart from economic growth, TTA have given rise to the commercialization of numerous green-technologies and drugs to treat various chronic diseases including breast cancer and Crohn’s disease, thus highlighting the societal impact of TTA.
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