Abstract: Using data of patent licenses between Chinese universities and companies, this paper examines how development stage of the technology, the geographic distance between the university and potential licensees, and their collaboration experience influence the university’s propensity of licensing the technology exclusively. When faced with high risks, firms’ willingness to commit requisite investment to commercializing the university’s technology will decrease. This study argues that the university can solve the problem through appropriate design of the licensing contract. Specifically, exclusive license can serve as a mechanism to increase mutual commitment, mitigating risks caused by technological immaturity, geographical distance and lack of collaboration experience and motivating companies to invest complementary assets, thus facilitating the university’s technology commercialization. Empirical results show that the early-stage technology and the lack of collaboration experience increase the university’s propensity of licensing the technology exclusively. Meanwhile, the negative relationship between the maturity of the licensed technology and university’s propensity of adopting exclusive license will be mitigated when the geographic distance between the licensee and the university is longer.

Key words: university&rsquo, s technology commercialization

摘要： 基于我国高校与企业间的专利许可数据，本文研究技术成熟度、校企之间的地理距离和校企合作经验如何影响高校采取排他性许可的倾向。当商业化高校的技术伴随着高风险时，企业承诺投入必要资源的意愿降低。本研究认为，合理的许可合同设计是高校解决该问题的方式之一。排他性许可作为高校创造共同承诺的机制，能够减轻技术不成熟、地理距离劣势和缺少合作经验给企业带来的风险，激励企业投入互补性资产，促进高校科技成果产业化。实证结果表明，技术成熟度越低，高校与企业的合作经验越少，高校采用排他性许可的倾向越高。同时，随着地理距离增加，技术成熟度减少高校进行排他性许可倾向的关系会被削弱。