The Act on inventions at public research institutions: Danish universities' patenting activity

This paper focuses on the Danish Act No. 347 of 1999, which granted IPRs on inventions at public research institutions to the institutions themselves. After summarizing the situation in Denmark prior to the new law, I describe the Act's main features and then I turn my attention to the solutions adopted by Danish academia to face the opportunities and challenges posed by the new situation. Finally, using a unique dataset including all patents filed by Danish universities from 1982 to 2003, I describe university patenting activity.