Managing Intellectual Assets within Knowledge-based Partnerships: Insights from a Survey of Public Laboratories Collaborating with Industry

When public research laboratories and industry meet to produce and exchange knowledge and technologies, they face decisions about how to frame these collaborations to make the best use of each partner’s resources, ensure a productive and fair outcome, and defuse any tensions and conflicts. In this paper we examine these questions through a survey of 130 public laboratories in France. This study contributes new insights into the characteristics of contractual and intellectual property agreements within collaborative R&D settings, which reflect both the strategies adopted by laboratories to manage their intellectual assets and the requirements of their private partners.