Academic Patenting in Sweden: New Evidence from the 2011 Database

• Evangelos Bourelos • Maureen McKelvey

Swedish Data : 3 sets

• 2005: KEINS. Full analysis. List of academics => matching EPO. All positions, most all universities and technical/medical universities– 6 universities tend to patent– University invented completely diff uni-owned– Most all uni invented are assigned to firms

• 2009: MSc project. Analysis of the 6 unis that patented• 2011: ESF. Full analysis. List of academics => matching

EPO. All positions, same univ (minus 1)– Just finishing the database

Swedish ESF 2011 Creation: Continuation of Keins=>ESF

• The Data• 27 Universities• 48 220 Employees• 36 231 Academics

Variables for all individual researchers

• Name• Surname• Year of Birthday, Birthday• Address-Zip, City• Rank, Position type• University• Discipline• Faculty, Department, Devision• Email, Phone (Personummer)

Matching this list with EPO Data

• Data- Retrieved from “DISCO” server• -Clean characters From Swedish letters(Ä,Ö,Å)(Already done in EPO Data)-Split names to eliminate middle initials(Mats j. Andersson Mats Andersson)- Match according to initials on surname and name(Mats Johansson MAJO)

Matching

• Matching Initials 635 951 Combinations • Calculate Similarity ScoresName, Surname, Address, Zip Code, CityTotal Similarity ScoreLeft joint from Academic’s database to EPO dataIf 0 on right side, observation omitted

Filtering

• 1. (+) Pairs with SIMILARITY_TOT = 0; (Excluded SLU and UMU where address was missing)2. (+) Verified inventors in 2005 and or 2009 database3. (-) Minimum age to file a patent is set at 22 (to improve)4. (-) Matches in disciplines with very small probability of patenting were excluded.Excluded: Humanities apart from linguistics, Social sciences apart from Business and Economics, applied psychology, media

Filtering Mutual

• 4. (+-) Similarity name= similarity surname=0• 5. (+-) Same University• 6. (+-) Uncommon name• 7. (+-) Criteria 3, 4

Inventors by Year-Country Level

Year Universities Academic Inventors

2005 26 741

2009 6 787

2011 27 930

UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC INVENTORS SHARE IN TOTAL % ACADEMIC EMPLOYEES AI/AE %

UPPSALA UNIVERSITY 122 13.08 2306 5,29

KAROLINSKA INSTITUTE 119 12.75 1840 6,47

LUND UNIVERSITY 109 11.68 4904 2,22

CHALMERS UNIVERSITY 95 10.18 1817 5,23

KTH-ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY88 9.43

2621 3,36

LINKOPING UNIVERSITY 80 8.57 2751 2,91

GOTHENBURG UNIVERSITY 72 7.72 3755 1,92

LULEA TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY 43 4.61 1116 3,85

STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY 30 3.22 2684 1,12

UMEA UNIVERSITY 22 2.36 3827 0,57

MALMO UNIVERSITY 21 2.25 867 2,42

MID SWEDEN UNIVERSITY 21 2.25 786 2,67

SWEDISH UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE20 2.14

1517 1,32

KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY 17 1.82 911 1,87

BLEKINGE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 13 1.39 373 3,49

OREBRO UNIVERSITY 13 1.39 1059 1,23

HALMSTAD UNIVERSITY 11 1.18 413 2,66

JONKOPING 11 1.18 592 1,86

MALARDALENS UNIVERSITY 10 1.07 695 1,44

SKOVDE UNIVERSITY 9 0.96 394 2,28

UNIVERISTY OF BORAS 5 0.54 469 1,07

GAVLE UNIVERSITY 1 0.11 534 0,19

Total 932 100% 36 231 2,57

6 Top Universities

Uppsala University Karolinska Institute Lund University Chalmers University KTH Linkoping0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

122 119

109

9588

80

Academic Inventors 2011

Uppsala UniversityKarolinska InstituteLund UniversityChalmers UniversityKTHLinkoping

Distribution by Discipline

1. Natural Sciences

2. Engineering and Technology

3. Medical and Health Sciences

4. Agricultural Sciences

5. Social Sciences 6. Humanities0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Academic Inventors by Discipline

1. Natural Sciences

2. Engineering and Technology

3. Medical and Health Sciences

4. Agricultural Sciences

5. Social Sciences

6. Humanities

Number of Patents by field

1. Natural Sciences

2. Engineering and Technology

3. Medical and Health Sciences

101 Mathematics 12 201 Civil Engineering 45 301 Basic Medicine 88

102 Computer and Information Science 78 202

Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering 56 302

Clinical Medicine 49

103 Physical Sciences 58 203 Mechanical Engineering 38 303 Health Sciences 12

104 Chemical Sciences 61 204 Chemical Engineering20401Kemiska 16 304

Medical Biotechnology 21

105

Earth and related Environmental sciences 13 205 Materials Engineering 7 305

Other Medical Sciences 2

106 Biological Sciences 37 206 Medical Engineering20601Medicinsk 1

207 Environmental Engineering 2

209 Industrial Biotechnology 8

210 Nano Technology 20

Distribution by Rank

3.061.93

19.52

38.48

11.12

9.19

16.69

Inventor Freq.%

Visiting professor Visiting Lektor

Researcher Professor

Other Lektor

Assistant professor

Age of Inventor

• Average inventor born 1960

University Year of BirthKI 1957LIU 1958LU 1957UU 1959

Some notes on Sweden

• Legal framework: Professor’s privilege• Mainly university-invented. if TTO, likely Karolinska• Still owned by companies, skewed to MNCs, plus TTO

(Karolinska) but also SMEs and individuals• Top patenting at: Comprehensive universities (Uppsala, Lund,

Linköping) as well as specialised medicine (Karolinksa) and specialised engineering (KTH, Chalmers)

• From other research: These 6 have high science or publications (exemption of Linköping) and high R&D investment from firms (exemption of Uppsala)

• Only 38% by professors – important to include the personnel categories

Increasing-controlling for precision

• Manual check/contact for 404 inventors-not existing in previous databases.

• Using the co-inventors dimension for verification

Next step

• Cross sectional dataset 2005, 2011 • Three level analysis• -Individual Level• Discipline Level• University Level• (potential for country level as well)

Thank you!

• Questions?• Comments..