The exploitation of publicly funded research intellectual property in Malaysia

Abstract

This article reports a study that aims to formulate an outbound open innovation strategy for the exploitation of publicly funded research intellectual property in Malaysia. The outbound open innovation strategy is proposed due to the inability of the existing intellectual property commercialization strategy of Malaysian public universities to optimize the exploitation of publicly funded research intellectual property. The current strategy assumes that the best exploitation route is by way of commercialization to enable the public universities to monetize the publicly funded research intellectual property. This strategy creates a legal barrier since publicly funded research intellectual property is locked up behind proprietary rights and a rigid licensing regime. In contrast, outbound open innovation strategy allows publicly funded research intellectual property to be exploited through permissive licensing. This study employs a mixed-methods approach involving semi-structured interviews and survey questionnaires with technology licensing officers of Malaysian public universities. The output of this study is an outbound open innovation strategy which connects innovation to the intellectual property system and improves the socio-economic impact of publicly funded research intellectual property.