专利收益分配与高校专利运营——基于美国高校样本的系统动力学分析

Patent income distribution and patent commercialization in universities: A system dynamics analysis based on the samples of universities in the USA

高校专利运营是一个包括发明创造、价值增值和价值实现三个主要环节的复杂动态过程。以美国高校为样本,基于动态系统视角分析发明人专利收益分配比例对高校专利运营不同环节的影响,并针对发明人专利收入与科研经费支出对高校专利运营的影响差异进行比较分析。研究发现:近70%的样本高校中发明人专利收入与发明披露量之间不存在显著的相关性;而在发明人专利收入与发明披露量显著相关的高校中,发明人专利收益比例对高校专利运营的发明创造环节作用明显,对价值增值环节作用因样本而异,但对价值实现环节的影响微乎其微;同时,当专利收益分配基数与科研经费支出之间相差悬殊时,与通过提高发明人收益比例增加发明人专利收入相比,同比增加科研经费支出对专利运营各环节的影响更大。一刀切式地提高发明人收益比例对高校专利运营的促进作用十分有限。据此提出,高校应细化发明人收益分配方案,并综合运用多种激励方式,发挥政策协同作用。

Economic incentives to encourage university inventors to disclose their inventions to universities and participate in patent commercialization have been widely used in various countries. The law of the People′s Republic of China on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements, amended in 2015, stipulates that the share of profits to those who make contributions should not be less than 50%. Some provinces and cities in China raised the inventor share to no less than 70% and even up to 99%. The performance of increasing the inventor share in promoting the patent operation output of universities is in question. Patent commercialization in universities is a complex dynamic process, which includes three main stages: invention-creation, value-added, and value realization. From the perspective of a dynamic system, this paper analyzes the impact of income distribution on different stages of university patent commercialization by taking US universities as samples. Meanwhile, this paper comparatively analyzed the influence of the inventor′s patent income and the scientific research expenditure on patent commercialization. The main findings are as follows: firstly, in over 70% of the sample universities, the inventor′s income is not significantly related to the amount of invention disclosure;secondly, while in the universities that the inventor′s income closely correlates to invention disclosure, the inventor share has an obvious effect on the invention-creation stage, and the influence of the inventor share on the value-adding stage varies with the samples, but the inventor share has little effect on the value realization stage;thirdly, when there is a marked difference between the distribution base of patent income and the scientific research expenditure, compared with increasing the inventor share to increase the inventor′s patent income, increasing the scientific research expenditure has a more impact on the various stages of patent commercialization. It reflects that simply increasing the inventor share has a limited effect on promoting of university patent commercialization. The possible contributions of this paper are as follows: firstly, this paper combs the influencing path of the inventor share on patent commercialization from the perspective of the dynamic system, considering the intermediate effect of the inventor′s patent income, which deepens the understanding of the role of the inventor share in patent commercialization in theory and practice;secondly, this paper analyzes the impact of the inventor share on different stages of university patent commercialization by applying system dynamics analysis method, which expands the methodology in the research field of patent commercialization.The main policy implications of this study are as follows: firstly, universities should refine the income distribution scheme and can design the inventor share according to the amount of patent income because the one-size-fits-all revenue distribution method cannot meet inventors′ expectations in all cases, especially when patent revenue is not high and the financial incentive effect is not evident;secondly, because of inventors′ different perceptions and recognition of various incentive methods, universities should make comprehensive use of incentive methods, such as honor award, career development, financial incentive, to bring into play the synergistic incentive effect of policies;thirdly, universities should further refine the patent income distribution scheme of stakeholders such as the inventor′s department to support the scientific research of inventors.