1 Seducing the Goose: Patenting by UK Universities

Universities are patenting more than ever before, much more. Why? If it is to make money, they are not doing at all well. Perhaps they seek to demonstrate their relevance to the needs of industry. Yet, there is evidence that the university’s determination to patent may actually impede technology transfer to industry and poison relations. And there is a general danger that patenting will divert resources from the traditional activities of the university, benefiting the commercial at the expense of the intellectual. University managers seem blind to these possibilities. This paper examines their approach to patenting and suggests that their understanding of the patent system has been drawn from the technology with which they are most familiar, that of the pharmaceutical industry. An industry that is more dependent than any other on patents and that expends vast resources exploiting the system has become the exemplar for those who dabble in a system of which they know little