Licensing of University Inventions: The Role of a Technology Transfer Office

We provide a theoretical model which helps to explain the specific role of TTOs. Using a framework where firms have incomplete information on the quality of inventions, we develop a reputation argument for the TTO to reduce the asymmetric information problem. Our results indicate that a TTO is often able to benefit from its capacity to pool innovations across research units (and to build a reputation) within universities. It will have an incentive to 'shelve' some of the projects, thus raising the buyer s beliefs on expected quality, which results in fewer but more valuable innovations being sold at higher prices. We explain the importance of a critical size for the TTO in order to be successful as well as the stylized fact that TTOs may lead to fewer licensing agreements, but higher income from innovation transfers.Industry-science relations; technology transfer offices; technology licensing.