The unequal benefits of academic patenting for science and engineering research

The increase of university patents has raised issues of potential conflicts of interest in Faculty activities. Nonetheless, recent empirical evidence has indicated that very productive scientists contribute disproportionally to academic patenting and that inventing is likely to encourage an increase in scientific productivity. This article adds to this evidence by showing that such beneficial effects are not likely to be earned equally by every scientist. The analysis was run in a large sample of Italian scientists contributing to materials sciences in either chemistry or engineering of materials, and makes use of several econometric techniques that are suitable for treating unobserved heterogeneity, excess zeros, and incidental truncation. Results indicate that benefits are higher when the feedback from applied research is richer, and when regimes of secrecy are less harsh, which is more likely to be the case with engineering, as opposed to hard science research. If confirmed by further evidence, the findings suggest that academic policies in matters of intellectual property rights should be refined and tailored to field specificities.