Abstract:

Universities play a significant role in fostering entrepreneurial skills development, as well as in nurturing and accelerating innovations and new intellectual property rights generated from these processes. Outside of startup accelerators, they also create viable alternatives to traditional employment for academic individuals during their studies and post-graduation, or for careers inside the academy. According to relevant survey data, the ratio of patent licensing in universities is only 3.4%, and the commercialization rate is 4.1%. Another study shows that out of 2.1 million active patents in the US, 95 percent fail to be licensed or commercialized. However, other research indicates that the main problem lies in the instability of resources and the lack of commercialization skills among inventors. Although the process has been supported by local and central governments, it has not been formally recognized by law, nor is there a clarified process. Therefore, researchers are unsure whether the ownership allocated to inventors still exists when more resources are invested in innovative research. As a result, they invest more energy into short-term research. In Finland, this creates a pattern of pursuing one new project after another, instead of aiming to market, sell, or license new innovations. Therefore, we must clarify the legal issues related to patent ownership as soon as possible to ensure the stability of ownership, enabling university patent inventors to form long-term stable expectations. This article provides a description of cases from Finnish higher education institutions. The results of this study will be of particular use to educators and institutions planning the entrepreneurial path for new innovations.

Keywords:

University-industry cooperation, innovation, commercialization, IPR, patents.