Dutch universities should finally develop an unambiguous policy for patents. A national platform with representatives from business, science and government wants to make sure of that. Dutch universities apply for too few patents.
According to research at the University of Amsterdam only two-hundred of the annual three-thousand patent-applications are from universities, even though universities take care of the bulk of research.
Universities sometimes miss out on significant amounts of income because of this, as the University of Delft found out when a company from Haarlem started producing the famous 'skating-strip' that had been invented by researchers from the university.
The National Platform for Patent Policy Universities hopes to develop a national policy on patents. At this moment the platform would like to start a discussion on the issue. Opponents of large-scale patent applications by universities think that this will just cost money. Only a few patents make money, while applications and the defense of patents cost a lot of money. Moreover, universities do not see it as their task to protect knowledge, but rather to spread it.
That patent applications only cost money is only partially true, according to the Bureau Industrial Property, which is involved in the platform on behalf of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. For businesses, investing in academic research is often not attractive, because the knowledge is not protected by patents. A better patent policy could change that.
