Innovation in Academe

The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 expressly gave colleges, universities, and other nonprofit entities the right, which had previously been presumptively held by the federal government itself, to patent inventions resulting from federally funded research and development (R&D) activities they conduct. In the nearly three decades since the Bayh-Dole Act changed the nation's patent laws, some academic institutions have been much more prolific than others at patenting technologies and other inventions discovered in their laboratories. There is substantial interest in better understanding the link between federal funding and innovation among U.S. colleges and universities. This report contributes to such improved understanding in two ways. First, it provides data, heretofore unavailable, that contain complete information laboriously extracted from official federal data systems on the amount of federal R&D funding that was actually provided to U.S. colleges and universities by fiscal year (FY) and by federal agency. These data will be of use to researchers interested in examining a number of issues related to federal funding of R&D at universities and colleges. Secondly, the report uses these data to provide an exploratory analysis of federal R&D funding and the patenting activities at universities and colleges using funding data from FY 2005 to describe the characteristics of academic institutions that have shown a greater propensity to patent since the Bayh-Dole Act was passed.