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Patent strategy in Chinese universities: a comparative perspective

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Abstract

Patenting and licensing is not only a significant method of university knowledge transfer, but also an important indicator for measuring academic R&D strength and knowledge utilization. The methodologies of quantitative and qualitative analysis, including a special patent h-index indicator to assess patenting quality, were used to examine university patenting worldwide. Analysis of university patenting from 1998 to 2008 showed a significant overall global increase in which Chinese academia stands out: most of the top 20 universities in patenting in 2008 were in China. However, a low rate of utilization of Chinese academic patents may have roots in: (1) university research evaluation system encourages the patent production more, rather than the utilization; (2) problems in the formal mechanisms for university technology transfer and licensing, (3) industry’s limited expectation and receptive capabilities and/or (4) a mismatch between the interests of the two institutional spheres. The next action to be taken by government, university and industry in China will be to explore strategies for improving academic patent quality and industry take-up.

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Notes

  1. “The 10 campuses of California” are as follows: University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Davis; University of California, Irvine; University of California, Los Angeles; University of California, Merced; University of California, Riverside; University of California, San Diego; University of California, San Francisco; University of California, Santa Barbara; University of California, Santa Cruz.

    “The 3 major research laboratories” are Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

  2. How do the university research results industrialize? http://www.cipnews.com.cn/showArticle.asp?Articleid=11966. Last accessed on Dec 18, 2009.

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Acknowledgement

We would like to acknowledge the reviewers, and the Chief Editor of Scientometrics, Mr. Tibor Braun, for his kindness giving us more time for revising. The research was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant 70773015; Project of DUT under Grant DUTHS2008329; as well as Project of Liaoning Province Social Sciences Foundation under Grant L08BJY062.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dalian University of Technology, 2#, Linggong Road, 116024, Dalian, China

    Chunjuan Luan

  2. International Institute of Triple Helix, LaSalle Innovation Park, Avda. Valdemarin, 81-28023, Madrid, Spain

    Chunyan Zhou

  3. School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University of Technology, 2#, Linggong Road, Dalian, China

    Aiyun Liu

  4. Shenzhen Graduate Institute, Tsinghua University, D Block, Xili University City, Shenzhen, China

    Chunjuan Luan

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  1. Chunjuan Luan
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  2. Chunyan Zhou
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Correspondence to Chunjuan Luan.

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Luan, C., Zhou, C. & Liu, A. Patent strategy in Chinese universities: a comparative perspective. Scientometrics 84, 53–63 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0194-8

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