US Universities, industry find roadblocks to R&D partnering

[Duppers]

Industry funding for research surpassed that of the federal government in 1980; now industry pays for two-thirds of all the R&D conducted in the US. But as a share of total research funding for universities, industry support has declined from its peak of 7% in 1999 to 5% in 2006, according to NSF statistics. In that year US companies spent just $2.4 billion of their $223.4 billion total R&D outlays at US institutions of higher education.


Most of the impediments to partnerships are related to the treatment of intellectual property—patents, trade secrets, and know-how. Universities are intent on protecting the intellectual property they have built up over decades of basic research financed overwhelmingly by federal agencies. Whether their IP negotiations end with an agreement or not, industry and academia agree that the process of negotiation takes far too long. A few companies are rumored to have given up talking in frustration and instead have worked out arrangements with foreign universities. No one interviewed for this article would provide a specific example of that.

Dow Chemical Co, however, is up-front about preferring to work with institutions abroad. Susan Butts, senior director of external science and technology programs at Dow, says foreign universities ranging from Cambridge to Tsinghua will routinely assign their intellectual property rights over to the industry sponsor.

Much more...http://ptonline.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_61/iss_5/20_1.shtml?type=PTFAVE

There are valid points for both sides of this.