Legal Support for Selected Forms of University Technology Transfer through the Lens of Foreign Experience

Abstract

In modern conditions of the need for dynamic scientific and technological development, ensuring the innovative, technological, and other creative activities of universities — as centers for generating new knowledge and shaping new skills — takes on particular importance. A system of partnerships, participation in consortia, and other science- and practice-oriented associations has become an integral element in the development of the modern university. At the same time, key issues remain the legal support within universities for technology transfer, the allocation of rights to results of intellectual activity, and the establishment of systems for their accounting, protection, and commercialization. The formation, in this context, of university-based enterprises for technology transfer and of effective partnerships at both national and international levels also raises problems concerning the realization of mutual interests, the motivation for cooperation between academic and industry partners, the design of business models for such cooperation, and the orientation of university entrepreneurship and joint activities toward ensuring different levels of technology readiness in the context of achieving technological leadership in specific technologies and production processes. The paper examines the problems of legal support for the establishment and operation of small innovative enterprises, small technology companies, scientific and industrial associations, taking into account relevant foreign experience. A number of conclusions have been drawn, including the point that, given the market-oriented nature of relations involved in introducing technologies and finished products into stream of commerce, intellectual property results that are more focused on protecting a solution in the market, such as trade secrets and software (computer programs), should gain particular importance for universities.