TY  - JOUR
AU  - Jensen,Richard A.
AU  - Thursby,Jerry G.
AU  - Thursby,Marie C.
TI  - The Disclosure and Licensing of University Inventions
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9734
PY  - 2003
Y2  - May 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9734
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9734.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Richard Jensen
Dept. of Economics 
University of Notre Dame
434 Flanner Hall
Notre Dame, IN 46556
E-Mail: richard.jensen.24@nd.edu

Jerry Thursby
Georgia Institute of Technology
E-Mail: jerry.thursby@mgt.gatech.edu

Marie C. Thursby
College of Management
Georgia Institute of Technology
800 West Peachtree Street, NW
Atlanta, GA 30308-1149
Tel: 404/894-6249
Fax: 404/385-4894
E-Mail: marie.thursby@mgt.gatech.edu
AB  - We examine the interplay of the three major university actors in technology transfer from universities to industry: the faculty, the technology transfer office (TTO), and the central administration. We model the faculty as an agent of the administration, and the TTO as an agent of both the faculty and the administration. Empirical tests of the theory are based on evidence from our survey of 62 US research universities. We find that the TTOs reported licensing objectives are influenced by their views of faculty and administration, which supports the assumption that the TTO is a dual agent. The theory yields predictions for whether or not faculty disclose inventions and if so, at what stage, which in turn affects license contract terms. We also examine how the portion of inventions disclosed at different stages varies with faculty quality. Quality is found to be inversely related to the share of license income allotted to faculty.
ER  -