Hochschullehrerprivileg—A Modern Incarnation of the Professor’s Privilege to Promote University to Industry Technology Transfer

Abstract

Technology transfer offices are ubiquitous institutions within American universities. Most are underfunded and understaffed, will never turn a profit, drain limited university resources and potentially hinder innovation and knowledge transfer. Yet, inexplicably, new offices continue to be established. This article suggests that the continued hype over rare but lucrative blockbuster patents fuels much of this unnecessary expansion. These new offices, essentially mandated to discover the next big one, tend to make poor patenting and licencing decisions that effectively impinge on university knowledge transfer capabilities. This article suggests that although these offices may be necessary for some major research institutions, the bulk of academic research universities ought to share regional transfer offices that can benefit from economies of scale and experienced technology transfer officers. This article further suggests that the current status quo is the result of the somewhat arbitrary granting of patent rights to universities by the Carter era Bayh–Dole Act. Instead, this article proposes, in addition to a general overhaul in the methodology for transferring university knowledge, that a hochschullehrerprivileg or ‘professor’s privilege’ be established: academic inventors, not their bureaucratically bogged-down universities, should retain the patent rights that can then be licenced through the regional technology transfer offices without the, often ineffectual, university intervention. In addition to streamlining the current technology transfer process, such a system will also create strong incentives for research scientists to transfer knowledge and become more entrepreneurial. Although an overhaul of the American structure, while necessary, seems unlikely, such a system can nevertheless be implemented in both developed and developing countries that are futilely seeking to reproduce American successes through mimicking the current American Bayh–Dole arrangement.