On the transfer of technology from universities: The impact of the Bayh–Dole Act of 1980 on the institutionalization of university research

While the academic and policy literature has focused on patent counts and patent quality as possible outcome measures to evaluate the impact of the U.S. Bayh–Dole Act of 1980, we argue that the impact of the Act on university effort to transfer its technology to the private sector might be seen more accurately by examining the trend in the initial establishment of technology transfer offices (TTOs). Using an econometric framework to identify the presence of multiple structural breaks in data on the annual number of university TTOs, we find multiple break dates over the period 1925 to 2014. One break date was in the late-1960s and a second break date occurred about 1982. We suggest, in contrast to previous findings in the literature, that the Act did have an impact on the formal internal transfer of technology from universities through patenting by providing an incentive for universities to invest in a TTO research infrastructure. We also suggest that our empirical methodology is applicable to an assessment of the impact of legislation similar to the Bayh–Dole Act in the many countries with such legislation.