Abstract:

In the digital transformation age, the role of the universities have exponentially increased because they play important roles in the development of the new technologies; hence, the technology transfer from the labs to the markets has important impacts on the today’s global industries. The highly intensive know-how is valuable for economic commodities, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Data Science, and Human Computer Interaction. In this highly innovative ecosystem, the technology transfer offices (TTOs) have been accelerating the innovation from the universities’ labs to the highly competitive global markets. As it is seen in the best universities, the TTOs have important impacts in Turley; for that reason, since 2013, the TTOs have been encouraged and empowered in Turkey in order to improve commercialization of the knowledge at the universities by increasing particularly the number of the patents as a part of the ıntellectual property assets of the universities.

In order to analyze strategically the impacts of the TTOs on the higher education institutions’ innovation and patents ability, the well-rounded qualitative research had been strategically developed. The main goal of this research is to analyze critically the effects of the TTOs by analyzing the white paper reports published by the different patent attorneys and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the ecosystem

The collected data from the white papers and reports have clearly showed that there was only 3 patents applied and 2 patents published in the Turkish Patent Office. The same kind of the pattern could be seen from 2002 to 2012 on which the number of the applied patents was 33, whereas the published number was only 27. However, the year 2013 was the year on which most of the TTOs had opened at the universities. In the year of 2014, the number of the applied patents was 223, while the published number was only 43. Additionally, in the year of 2015, the number of the applied patents was 326, while the published number was only 117 In the year of 2016, the number of the applied patents was 472, while the published number was only 331. In the year of 2017, the number of the applied patents was 773, while the published number was only 701. In the year of 2019, the number of the applied patents was 1,019, while the published number was only 1,001, However, in the year of 2019, the number of the applied patents because of the COVID-19: the number of the applied patents was 763, while the published number was only 760. As the data has showed clearly that the TTOs has played important roles not only in the applied patents but also ‘n the published number of the patents since they have proactively managed the intellectual property rights and assets of the universities, particularly in the universities where highly innovative patents could be developed strategically like in Istanbul University in which the number of the applied patents was 595, while the number of the registered patents was 169 in 2020.

Consequently, this research shows that the TTOs play important roles in the development of the patents. More importantly, the evidence based data collection showed that TTOs have important impact on the development of the intellectıal property asserts of the universitşes which affect commercialization of the innovation developed at the universities' labs and studios for the benefit of the communities and the industries.

Keywords:

Higher Education, Universities, Higher Education Management, Leadership, Innovation Management, Technology Transfer Offices, Patents, Intellectual Property.