Discovery Process – R&D Lead Time Needed for Innovation

While numerous studies have been published about product time-to-market and the ways it can be improved, limited information is known about the time leading up to the creation of new intellectual property that could be the basis of these new products; in particular the time between basic research, discovery, and generation of protectable intellectual property (e.g. patents). Using the patents issued to all of the campuses in the University of California system in calendar year 2012 as our sample set, we analyzed the patent data in terms of the filing date, issue date, patent class, assignee(s), and whether the patent referenced support from a government grant. From this we were able to determine the pendency period of the patents (how long it took after filing to issue), the field in which they fell, which federal agency(cies), if any, provided research support or funding, and whether it was solely or jointly owned; the latter being indicative of a collaborative effort. We then cross referenced the government grant information against published grant abstracts. From this we were able to determine, among other things, period of time the project underwent research before the filing of the patent (or in other words, length of R that preceded the filing of the patent). The results show a wide diversity in lead time. The median lead time for NIH funded projects is nearly twice as long as NSF funded projects, 11.3 years vs 5.5 years.