The commercialisation process of patents by universities

The commercialisation process of university patents and how the decisions were made to patent new scientific discoveries and to commercialise them have not been studied extensively. This paper attempts to understand in detail, the process of commercialisation of university patents from the initial scientific disclosures through patent filings to the choice of commercialisation routes. A series of interviews were conducted with seven directors of technology transfer offices (TTO) of UK universities. The interviews were structured in a way so as to discover how new disclosures in their universities were chosen to be patented and how the patents were commercialised. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed with the help of Nvivo software. Then, case and cross case analysis were done. The result of the study showed that there are variations in practices between universities in how they decide to patent and in the routes of exploitation. Universities do differ on which inventions need to be patented and which route to go for their commercialisation. Universities that practice very highly selective procedures would only patent an invention after a very thorough market analysis. But there are universities that practiced low selective procedures; as such, they file for patent as long as the invention fulfils an expectation of potential value. Decisions on which route to commercialise are sought after the patent filings. Overall, only one university practice a very systematic selection procedure, from which, inventions were patented and specific route of commercialisation was chosen. Most of the universities based their selection criteria on motivations of the inventors, either to patent and which commercialisation route to utilise for their inventions.