University Technology Transfer Information Processing from the Attention Based View

Between 2005 and 2011, there was no substantial growth in licenses executed by university technology transfer offices. Since the passage of the Bayh Dole Act of 1980, universities have owned technological inventions afforded by federal research funding. There are still university technology transfer offices that struggle with increasing their licensing revenues. There is a persistent under performance by university technology transfer offices. This paper makes the contribution of advocating the novel use of cognitive thinking's attention based view to university technology transfer in order to resolve this problem. The attention based view teaches that human attention is limited and organizations are limited in what they pay attention to (Cyert, 1963; Ocasio, 1997). It is argued herein that universities may struggle with increasing their licensing revenues because they are not paying sufficient attention to licensing. Awareness of the problem is the first step in resolving it. It is propositioned that university technology transfer office staff pay more attention to intellectual property protection than patent marketing or licensing and this result in lower licensing revenues and lower overall performance. It is also propositioned that technology transfer offices with less experienced staff pay more attention to intellectual property protection than patent marketing and licensing. [This paper was published in: "Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Management 2015 International Annual Conference," S. Long, E-H. Ng, and A. Squires eds.]