The Bayh – Dole Act and university research and development Matthew

This paper examines the relationship between university research and development (R&D) activities and the Bayh–Dole Act. This ct made it much easier for universities to obtain patents from research funded by the federal government and may have provided niversities with an incentive to alter their R&D activities. The Act may provide an incentive to reduce basic research (which does ot generate licensing fees) and increase applied research (which does generate patents and licensing fees). In addition, industry ight be more willing to fund university R&D projects since the results would now be easier to patent. This paper differs from he existing literature which uses patent data (a measure of research output) by using research and development data (a measure of nventive input) to examine the effect of the Act. 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.