| Abstract;The Bayh-Dole Act enacted in 1980 encouraged university-business relations in the United States. The law gives the proprietary rights of federal-granted university R&D to the university, and requires the university to have a TLO. The unique features of the Silicon Valley are the strong role of universities, particularly Stanford, and the infrastructure of business support services being specialized for start-ups. The support services include lawyers, angel investors and venture capitalists. Most high-technology start-ups use equity finance, and, therefore, have a high-risk high-growth strategy, to comply to the investor requirements. Some universities raise tens of millions of dollars per year in royalty, which turns out to be a good portion of research funds but not a large part of university revenue. Confidentiality and proprietary of business sometimes conflicts with the free flow of knowledge that academia esteems. (author abst.) |
