IP Outreach Research > IP Use and Awareness

Reference

Details

Main Findings

32% of respondents reported having acquired protected intellectual property (IP) for use in their research in the last 5 years. In most cases acquired IP came either from industry (60%) or academia (29%). Generally, industry respondents had acquired IP at a higher rate than those from academia. 54% classified their most recent acquisition as a research tool/input.

Overall, the most popular method of acquisition of IP was the use of nonexclusive licences (used by 21% for their last request for protected IP). Exclusive licenses ranked second with 18%. Material transfer agreements (MTAs) ranked third with 16%. Purchases were at 12%. Academic respondents mostly used MTAs (36%), followed by nonexclusive licences and purchases (12% each), and exclusive licenses (8%). In industry, mostly exclusive and nonexclusive licenses were used (28% each), followed by purchases (11%), and MTAs (4%).

Technology acquisition time was dependent on the method of transfer employed and the sector of employment from which the technology was acquired. 33% of respondents reported that they had experienced difficulties in attempting to acquire IP-protected technologies. Overall, industry reported more IP-acquisition problems than academia. Difficulty in obtaining IP resulted in delayed research (37% for both academia/industry), changing research (32% in industry/23% in academia), and abandoning research (11% for both). The main reasons for changing/abandoning research were overly complex licensing negotiation and breakdown of licensing negotiations.


In total, 52% of predominantly industry respondents reported having created IP eligible for protection. The most-used method to protect IP was patents (used by 65%), followed by copyright (31%), trade secrets (22%), trademarks (15%); informal protection methods were delayed publication/not publish at all (16%) and withholding data/information (13%).

According to the authors, these data suggest that IP-protected technologies remain relatively accessible to the broad scientific community, and not as constrained by IP protections as many had cautioned.


84% of respondents reported that their scientific work had been published (mostly in peer-reviewed journals); in the academic sector, the publication rate was at 89%, and in industry at 75%. For all economic sectors, the most important motivations for publishing the results of scientific work were: to inform others (95%), to gain/justify research funding (54%), to document work in an archival setting (54%), to gather feedback (43%), and professional advancement (43%). Preventing others from acquiring IP protections did not appear to be a primordial motivation for publishing scientific work.

The decision as to how/where to publish depended on the following criteria: dissemination (75%), prestige (54%), timeliness (33%), ease of retrieval (23%), and free Internet availability (15%). Just 10% retained copyrights to their most recent publication (63% did not). Only 8% had used alternative, open access licensing models. Generally, access to scientific literature was perceived to have become easier. Still, 29% of respondents reported difficulties in gaining access to scientific literature (60% did not). Difficulties in accessing copyrighted scientific literature resulted in delayed research, but virtually never in abandoning a research project.

Interpreting these results, the authors suggest that the conduct of scientific research is not being hampered by IP protections in relation to scientific publishing. Still, the issue of access remains a possible cause for concern.


Data from publicly funded sources was used by 57%, about a quarter of which reported having experienced difficulties in obtaining such data. Problems experienced were substantial delays in the transfer of data and denied data access. These difficulties resulted in “some negative effects on research” (70%), “serious negative effects” or “no effects” (10% each).

[Date Added: Nov 20, 2008 ]