Heterogeneity of Patenting Activity and Its Implications for Scientific Research

The increasing commercialization of university discoveries has initiated acontroversy on the impacts for future scientific research. It has been argued that anincreasing orientation towards commercialization may have a negative impact onmore fundamental research efforts in science. Several scholars have thereforeanalyzed the relationship between publication and patenting activity of universityresearchers, and most articles report positive correlations. However, most studies donot account for heterogeneity of patenting activities ranging from university patentsto corporate patents. While the former may have closer links to basic research, thisis not what we expect from the latter. We argue that such efforts will indeed distractscientists from other activities, as collaborations with companies are usuallyassumed to have an applied character and do not necessarily coincide with basicresearch tasks...