Studies of the costs and benefits of university patent ownership have, to date, focused on life sciences technology. Increasingly, however, many of the most lucrative university-owned patents relate to computing and telecommunications, not genes or pharmaceuticals. In 2007, a University of...

In this chapter, we explore the extent to which universities and other nonprofit research institutes currently participate in the secondary market for patents. We document 220 assignments, involving a total of 544 U.S. patent assets, that appear to represent arms-length patent sales by...