New Tool Tracks How Academic Research Is Cited in Patents

Developers of a new tool designed to identify which patents cite academic research hope that it will empower scholars to patent their own discoveries, accelerating the transformation of fundamental knowledge into practical applications.

Currently, the tool has only been adopted by universities in the United States. However, there is growing interest in expanding its use internationally. Dashun Wang, a professor at Northwestern University in Illinois who specialises in the study of scientific processes and helped create the tool, noted that discussions are already underway in Europe. “We have just started conversations with EU partners and those are ongoing,” he said.

For instance, a leading researcher in cell-to-cell communication, discovered—through the tool—that her academic work had been cited in numerous commercial patents. Remarkably, a German immunotherapy start-up had filed ten patents based solely on her research. Until then, she had been completely unaware and had never considered patenting her own work. However, just one week after learning about this third-party use of her findings, she filed her first patent. Three years later, she is now actively developing her own start-up based on that work.

Wang and his team are carrying out randomised controlled trials to determine whether analytical tools like theirs can genuinely motivate researchers to transform their academic knowledge into tangible products. The goal is to assess the effectiveness of such data-driven approaches in promoting innovation and real-world application among scholars.