University Start-Ups

Driven by internal demands to produce new revenue streams and external pressures to help generate economic development, universities have become more entrepreneurial. Leading up to the 1980s, officials in the federal government were worried that the nation was not getting the full benefit of university research. At the time, a good deal of research was theoretical, whereas other promising research went undeveloped and often remained virtually unknown to all but a handful of other faculty.

To address these concerns, the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 was passed to establish incentives to induce organizations to orient work along commercially viable paths and allow universities to keep the rights to patents from federally funded research. As a result of this and subsequent legislation, universities began encouraging faculty to consider ...