The report, Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States, said the pace of university patenting, licensing of technology to industry, and the proliferation of university?linked startup companies slowed starting in 2000, a slowdown that persisted after the brief recession of the early 2000s.

The US Department of Commerce has identified a slow-down in university‐linked start-up companies as a cause for concern in its latest report. The report, Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States, said: "By the late 1980s, university patenting, licensing of technology to industry, and the proliferation of university‐linked startup companies all began to accelerate, reaching especially high growth rates in the late 1990s. "However, the pace of these activities slowed starting in 2000, a slowdown that persisted after the brief recession of the early 2000s." It then quoted as the footnote, a 2007 study by non-profit entrepreneurs group Kauffman Foundation, The University As Innovator: Bumps in the Road, that expressed concern about the commercialization focus of technology transfer offices (TTOs), rather than their desire to see ideas utilized. The Kauffman study had in turn quoted University of Georgia research that the principal mechanism favored by most TTOs was licensing for cash (72%), with licensing for an equity stake and sponsored research being less popular at 17% and 11%, respectively. The US Commerce report said reforming the corporate tax system so there was a lower headline rate and fewer exemptions would be beneficial along with changes to the intellectual property system. However, news provider Intellectual Property Watch warned there was a tension in the report between the need for innovators and entrepreneurs to have fewer restrictions and the need to protect IP rights holders. US universities own the rights to IP developed even with government money, after the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, but Federal money has become relatively less important over the past 30 years. In 1980 the Federal government provided 70.3% of all dollars spent on basic research, most of which went to universities and university‐based Federal research centres. Since then, the Federal government’s share of basic research funding given to all entities has fallen to 57% and its share of funding of basic research at universities has fallen to about 60%, largely due to increased funding from the private sector, the report said quoting National Science Foundation statistics for 2010.

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