Rooksby, Jacob H --- "Introduction to the Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer" [2020] ELECD 296; in Rooksby, H. Jacob (ed), "Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020) 1

Book Title: Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer

Editor(s): Rooksby, H. Jacob

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Introduction to the Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer

Author(s): Rooksby, Jacob H

Number of pages: 2

Extract:

1. Introduction to the Research Handbook on
Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer
Jacob H Rooksby



University researchers help improve lives by solving problems that impact health, happiness,
and societal wellbeing. Universities harness the power of faculty innovations and disseminate
them to the public, using intellectual property to create protections and provide rewards. This
process of technology transfer has been vibrant in US universities since at least the Second
World War and has grown in importance everywhere since then. The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980
helped spark formalized attention to technology transfer in the US and has inspired similar
legislation in countries across the globe.
Nearly forty years since the beginning of concerted attention to the topic, technology trans-
fer has come of age. Institutions have grown in their sophistication and enhanced their abilities
to be of service to society through innovation. Indeed, institutional governing boards and the
public increasingly demand it. A focus on innovation and economic development figures
prominently in institutional mission statements and the day-in, day-out functioning of the
university. Entrepreneurial spirits are not uncommon, and faculty frequently think in terms of
the value of their research and the potential contributions it can make to humankind.
At the same time that higher education has adopted market-based approaches and incentives
for the commercialization of technology, universities face ever more legal complexities and
challenges. Changes to the patent law in the US in 2011 have led to a landscape where the
stakes are higher, and the costs ...