Regimes of ordering: The commercialization of intellectual property in industrial-academic collaborations

This paper examines a diversity of regulatory mechanisms and negotiation processes involved in attempts to commercialize university research which provide direct and indirect means of linking the activities of individuals and organizations in the acquisition and exchange of commodified goods. The key question addressed is how is an activity that is always uncertain-the production of knowledge-is 'packaged' by intellectual property management and intellectual property rights so that it is controllable, commodifiable and enters into exchange relationships. This paper addresses the acquisition and stabilization of proprietary claims to knowledge between public and private organizations by considering a detailed care of a university spin-off and in doing so raises a number of more general issues about the translation of knowledge.