Intellectual Property, Innovation and Technology Commercialisation: A Systematic Literature Review of Contemporary Research

Abstract

Intellectual property (IP) has traditionally been understood as a legal mechanism for protecting inventions, creative works, brands, designs and other forms of intangible capital. Contemporary innovation systems, however, increasingly position intellectual property as a strategic instrument for knowledge creation, technology commercialisation, inter-organisational collaboration and competitive advantage. This systematic literature review examines the evolving relationship between intellectual property, innovation and technology commercialisation, with particular attention to the ways in which firms, universities and other knowledge-producing organisations employ intellectual property rights to appropriate, exchange and commercialise knowledge. The review synthesises literature across intellectual property management, innovation strategy, technology transfer, open innovation and knowledge-based approaches.

Following a structured review protocol informed by the principles of PRISMA 2020, the study develops a thematic synthesis of the existing literature. For demonstration purposes, the article uses an illustrative screening corpus to show how a systematic review may be reported in a journal publication. The synthesis identifies five dominant themes: intellectual property protection and innovation incentives; strategic IP management and value appropriation; university technology transfer and commercialisation; intellectual property in open and collaborative innovation; and emerging challenges associated with digital technologies, artificial intelligence and knowledge diffusion. The review indicates that the relationship between IP protection and innovation is neither linear nor uniform. Strong protection may support investment in certain technological sectors, while excessive exclusivity can restrict cumulative innovation, knowledge diffusion and collaborative experimentation. Similarly, patent counts, licensing revenues and numbers of spin-offs provide useful but incomplete measures of technology-transfer performance.

The review proposes an integrated framework in which IP strategy operates through four interconnected mechanisms: protection, appropriation, exchange and diffusion. The framework highlights the importance of contextual factors including technological characteristics, organisational capabilities, institutional environments and market conditions. The study concludes by identifying directions for future research concerning artificial intelligence-generated inventions, platform economies, patent thickets, standard-essential patents, university–industry collaboration and alternative models of knowledge governance.