• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.510-531
• /
• 2008

The importance of universities' knowledge to industrial innovation have widely pervaded the academia as well as policy communities. During the last three decades, a series of policy measures vitalizing the knowledge-transfer activities of academics have been implemented both in industrialized and industrializing countries. However, The concerns on the industry's influences on the academia have been raised by a group of researchers such as 'Economics of science'. Against this background, this paper addresses the issues related to the relationship between the academic research and knowledge-transfer activities. Particularly, based on the 16 years' panel data of Korean academics' patent and paper outputs, the effect of patenting activities on publishing activities is investigated. Moreover, the specific context of Korean academic system as well as general characteristics of academics are considered in the analysis and discussion. According to the results, not just the publishing and patenting outputs but their productivities have been dramatically increased during the last 16 years. The main finding is that the patenting activities have a consistent positive effect on the publishing activities of the academics in the estimations of panel models. Based on these results and the discussions, some policy recommendations for university-industry collaboration are suggested.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.1-43
• /
• 2012

This paper examines the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU)'s recent legal challenge on patents held by Myriad Genetics on two genes (BRCA1 and BRCA2) associated with a high risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Instead of analyzing the ACLU's objections to the BRCA patents in terms of its legal technicalities and normative ethical principles, this paper seeks to situate this legal case in the broader historical context of the shifting understanding of the relationship between private ownership, economic development, and the public interest in academic sciences. This paper first briefly chronicles a series of scientific developments and key legal decisions involving patenting of life forms, including genetically engineered micro-organisms animals and biological materials of human origins like cell cultures and genes, that led to the US Patent and Trademark Office(USPTO)'s official guidelines on human gene patenting in 2001. At another level, this paper analyzes the expansion of the scope of intellectual property rights in the life sciences in terms of shifting economic and legal assumptions about public knowledge and its role for economic development in the 1970s. I then show how these economic, legal, and ethical ideas that linked private ownership and the public interest have been challenged from the 1990s, calling for revisions in intellectual property laws regarding a wide array of life forms. The tragedy of the anticommons in human gene patenting, according to ACLU, has severely undermined creative scientific activities, medical innovations, access to health care and rights to life among cancer patient groups. ACLU's objection to human gene patenting on several US-constitutional grounds in turn suggests issues regarding intellectual property are critically linked to vital issues pertinent to the creative communities in arts and sciences, such as free exchange of ideas, censorship and monopoly, and free expression and piracy etc.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
• /
• v.11 no.1
• /
• pp.31-59
• /
• 2011

This paper examines university patenting activities as a commercialization of academic research. It shows how a number of university patents increase exponentially and how that can be, especially in terms of role of the state. In the late 1990, the Korean government supports the new vision of 'technological innovation' in establishing a science and technological policy and begins to perceive the importance of university R&D to overcome the economic crisis. Thus, an administrative, financial, and legal systems which support the university R&D are organized and the governmental grants for R&D increase exponentially, especially in promising new technologies(6T). Also, an institution for managing intellectual property rights is established in university. Universities assess professor's performance in terms of patent and license to encourage patenting activities. Thus the number of patents and its productivity increase exponentially. But the increase in patents takes place only to a dozen of universities, this means that a Matthew effect does work.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.444-475
• /
• 2013

This study explores the trajectories of institutionalization for technology transfer both in the U.S. and Korea, particularly focusing on two universities: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and the University of California (UC). By comparing the diverging paths of the two universities in setting up institutions, this paper examines the limits of and lessons for technology transfer policies both to Korean government and universities in Korea. The University of California was involved in designing rules and codes, on one hand, to stimulate its members' engagements with technology transfer activity and, on the other hand, to keep its academic integrity since, no later than, the 1960s. The efforts and consequences range from its rules of patenting system to its codes of conducts. Through making rules formal and resolving conflicts on technology transfer activity, the U.S., and the University of California have decreased uncertainties for its members' engagements with industries. By contrast, KAIST has not built up such range of rules or codes due to its shorter experience and its constraining legal contexts. Korea introduced the legal format of the US Bayh-Dole Act in 2002, and its central government has led the initiatives for technology transfer, not allowing much latitude for its universities. This study implies a set of policy recommendations to the Korean government and KAIST: to build entrepreneurial universities, the government should give greater latitude to universities, so universities should be more rigorously engaged in developing their own rules and routines; the government, rather, should focus on providing bridging R&D funds like the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), so researchers could draw on resources to move their basic research into next phases; KAIST would be better to promote its members to engage with industries, and introduce conduct codes that allow its academics to engage in industrial activity, rather than building up its commercialization facilities.

• Journal of Information Technology and Architecture
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.287-301
• /
• 2012

Against Nonaka's seminal work in 1999, this study aims to investigate various influencing factors on knowledge-transfer channels of Korean academics. To do this, we surveyed 20,000 Korean academics in science and engineering with regard to factors involved in their formal and informal collaborative activities with firms. In particular, we focus on the individual characteristics of the academics when the channels are changed from informal channels (e.g. consulting) to formal channels (e.g. licensing), as the codification of knowledge is important when it is spilled over. According to the results, male academics with a longer career and in the field of applied disciplines in a big laboratories are likely to join the transformation of the channels. Interestingly, application capacity as measured by the number of patent application is significantly and positively related to the participation of formal channels. In contrast, scientific capacity as measured by the number of papers is significantly and negatively, or in some case weakly, related to the participation. Finally, based on the findings, some policy implications are put forwarded.