Introduction

Since the 19th century, the continual discussion in the international community regarding how to protect industrial rights and intellectual property gradually resulted in a good number of international treaties that formed the basis of the intellectual property law in each country. However, in the current era of the knowledge economy, people realize more than ever that a successful model of knowledge management requires more than legal protection. It requires good control over the value chain, from the initiation of a new idea to the final commercialization (Polanyi, 1962).

When speaking of the theories and practices of intellectual property management, it is impossible to ignore the developments in the United States over the past few decades. Starting in the early 1980s, the United States enacted a number of intellectual-property-related acts that allowed relevant authorities to put into practical use the stock of intellectual property assets “frozen” in government agencies and universities. The most prominent of these acts is the Bayh-Dole Act, which has served as the foundation for establishing cooperative relationships among universities, industries, and research institutes since its entry into force (Liu & Hung, 2004). The U.S. model later became a huge success in the 1990s. After that time, more and more countries tried to follow this model. For example, Japan's effort in introducing the Universities Technology Licensing Office Act was widely believed to be a copy of the Bayh-Dole model.