Transferência de tecnologia e gestão da propriedade intelectual em universidades públicas no Estado de São Paulo.
Abstract
The importance of the technology management in Brazilian public universities has been
increasing due to the great potential regarding technology transfer from those organizations to
industries. After the Innovation Law in 2004, this point of view has been encouraged by the
establishment of specific guidelines regarding intellectual property, technology cooperation
with outside organizations and the role of universities in scientific and technological
development, as a part of the Brazilian innovation system. In this context, the objective of this
work was to understand how the public universities of the State of São Paulo structure their
regulation of intellectual property and technology transfer processes for companies, as well as
to identify forces and obstacles for that practice. The empiric part of the work consisted of
five case studies in public universities located in the State of São Paulo, using exploratory and
qualitative analysis. The universities studied were: University of São Paulo (USP), São Paulo
State University - Unesp, State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Federal University of São
Paulo (Unifesp) and Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar). All the regulations of
intellectual property that affect the technological management in those universities were
researched, as well as information concerning patenting performance and technology
commercialization, including interviews with university technology managers. In order to
gain full understanding of how the technology transfer process happens, illustrative studies
were carried out, using a contract from each one university (patent licensing or sponsor
research contract) involving companies. The results of the work were divided in two
categories. A first comparison of more restricted character involved illustrative studies of
technology transfer of processes from the five universities. The second, a more in-depth
approach, involved considerations concerning technology management in these universities.
Regarding the first perspective, the results were shown as a schematic representation for each
process, with similar indicatives in juridical-administrative terms. We also analyzed the
relationship between the people involved in technology transfer and the characteristics of the
organizations involved in it. As a general conclusion, it was noticed that formal technology
transfer using intellectual property has been growing in the public universities of the São
Paulo State. We could also observe that a process of physical and personnel structuring is
taking place in all the cases and that all the universities concerned have intellectual property
regulations. The comparative analysis carried out shows which universities are more actively
involved in patenting and technology commercialization. The results also demonstrate and
discuss the challenges that have been identified for the improvement of technology transfer in
these universities. The main ones are: the spread of the intellectual property culture,
technology evaluation, establishment and consolidation of best practices in management and
international technology protection, as well as alignment of policies among the institutions
which share and generate intellectual property.