Patent sharing by US universities: an examination of university joint patenting

This paper examines the quantity and quality of patents assigned jointly to US universities. The proportion of US university patents with assignment shared with other entities has grown rapidly. The data show the practice of universities sharing patent assignment spans technology classes, universities, and types of co-assignees. Our findings reveal that the quality of university joint patents differs across types of co-assignees when compared to patents assigned solely to a single university or to a single non-university entity. University--corporate joint patents appear to be particularly important, while patents co-assigned to universities and non-profit research institutes and hospitals appear particularly basic in nature. Patents jointly assigned to universities and US government agencies are of lower quality than similar patents assigned to a university or a US government agency alone.