Advancing Commercialization of Digital Products from Federal Laboratories (2021) / Chapter Skim
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7 Measuring the Commercialization of Digital Products from Federal Laboratories
7 Measuring the Commercialization of Digital Products from Federal Laboratories
Pages 93-110
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From page 93... ...
Data on commercialized products, processes, and services produced from knowledge or inventions created in federal labs -- including digital products -- are extremely limited, and no existing metrics capture the longer-term economic impact of these outputs. Researchers are generally limited to measuring inputs into invention (e.g., R&D spending, knowledge transfer via publications)
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From page 94... ...
. 1 Academic studies also provide occasional insight into technology transfer at federal labs.
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From page 95... ...
Although these data are useful, in many ways they raise more questions than they answer, as discussed below. Assessment of Current Metrics on Technology Transfer Although federal laboratories are typically engaged in the creation of knowledge and the generation of inventions, much of that work is not reflected in the annual technology transfer report, which focuses on patents, licenses, and 2 NIST credits patents on a fractional-count basis, so that each federal agency receives a fraction of the credit when there are assignees from multiple agencies.
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From page 96... ...
96 TABLE 7-1 Federal Laboratory Technology Transfer Metrics in the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Annual Report for the Four Largest Agencies (in terms of federal lab budgets) , Fiscal Year 2016 Agency GOGO and GOCO Share of Number of Number of Number Number of Total Number GOCO R&D GOGO/GOCO New Patent of Patents Active License of Active Budget R&D Budget Invention Applications Issued Licenses Income CRADAs (millions of (percent)
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From page 97... ...
Disaggregated data would help policy makers understand how different policies and practices across the federal labs affect the ability and propensity of each lab to ensure that knowledge and inventions are made available. Although inherent differences across agencies make cross-lab comparisons difficult, disaggregated data could also provide information about individual labs over time.
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From page 98... ...
DOE labs, for instance, are a mix of fundamental research labs, labs that primarily operate user facilities, applied engineering labs, and nuclear weapons labs. Comparing forward citations to software patents across the three agencies' labs since 2000, the average, normalized numbers of citations to patents 800 0.45 Number of Patents (Normalized by Number of Staff)
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From page 99... ...
. Although it is not possible to claim that the patents of DOE labs are more commercially valuable or significant than, say, those of DOD labs, such a substantial difference raises questions about the private-sector value or commercial viability of software patents or the effectiveness of technology transfer operations of one agency compared with another.
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From page 100... ...
Particularly relevant to digital products, the list includes software licenses executed, software products available for licensing, and copyright licenses executed. Because these additional metrics are optional, however, they are less likely to be implemented widely relative to the required metrics, and their impact on understanding of the commercialization of digital products is therefore uncertain at best.
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From page 101... ...
And again, the failure to disaggregate the data by lab is an important shortcoming. In addition, a more comprehensive accounting of innovation and commercialization outcomes arising from CRADAs and other cooperative arrangements between federal labs and the private sector is needed to assess the effectiveness of these arrangements.
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From page 102... ...
Understanding the role of the federal labs' contributions to the nation's knowledge capital, particularly via publications, is especially important in light of the secular decline of public firms' participation in publishable science over the past 30 years in the United States (Arora et al., 2016)
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From page 103... ...
As with other fragmentary available data, these are more suggestive than conclusive, since they are not disaggregated by lab. The dissemination of data collected through experiments and other functions of the federal labs is another critical component of knowledge sharing within the innovation process; however, information on data downloads is not included in the technology transfer report.7 Despite that omission, some agencies collect information on data use, which would be useful if systematically reported.
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From page 104... ...
Although a number of government agencies and federal labs have implemented policies with respect to collecting and analyzing how their knowledge and information, including digital products, are being used by the private sector, this information is not universally collected. Exemplar agencies, such as DOE, are employing common platforms such as DOE.code11 and code.gov to consolidate information on the number of downloads from their software code depositories.
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From page 105... ...
Impacts beyond Technology Transfer As noted in the case of datasets and software, any understanding of the contributions of the federal laboratories to innovation requires understanding how their outputs are utilized outside the lab. No metrics are collected that measure the effect of technology transfer on the recipient organization or the broader economic or societal impact of research at federal labs (Link et al., 2019)
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From page 106... ...
from the federal labs. Survey Questions Concerning Knowledge Flows Survey questions concerning flows of knowledge from federal laboratories into a firm's R&D operations might best be targeted to companies' R&D unit managers or directors (Cohen et al., 2002)
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From page 107... ...
. Finally, as an important guide to policy, the survey could explore the pathways through which such knowledge, software, data, or other digital outputs from federal labs were acquired, including, for example, licenses, cooperative arrangements, publications, public meetings or conferences, informal information exchange, use of facilities, and hiring.
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From page 108... ...
Thus, the committee proposes three data collection efforts: data from individual federal labs on numerous dimensions of technology transfer, supplementing existing data-gathering efforts; data from scientists working at federal labs; and data from companies relating to their interactions with federal labs. IN CLOSING The committee recognizes that the collection of additional data from federal laboratories and companies may represent a substantial burden of time and effort.
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From page 109... ...
should develop survey questions for firms, in accordance with Paperwork Reduction Act requirements, regarding the data, software, digital content, knowledge, and inventions originating from the federal laboratories that have contributed to firms' commercialization of new products, processes, and services. Firms should also report on the patents, processes, and products to which the outputs of the federal labs have contributed.
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From page 110... ...
110 COMMERCIALIZATION OF DIGITAL PRODUCTS FROM FEDERAL LABS Recommendation 7-4: Federal agencies should dedicate sufficient resources to measurement such that analysts and policy makers will have the information needed to develop recommendations regarding the federal laboratories' technology transfer and other activities that impact the commercialization of the labs' research and development outputs, including those related to digital products. To this end, the National Science Foundation should standardize the collection and reporting of the current data elements and those proposed by the committee.
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