Financial and commercial aspect of the technology transfer process

Abstract

This article provides theoretical synthesis and critical analysis of existing scientific approaches to the concept "technology transfer". The author's vision of the nature of this concept is proved. In the framework of clarifying the nature the list of objects of technology transfer is specified and its financial and commercial character is defined. The article highlighted two approaches to technology transfer entity definition. According to the first scientific approach, technology transfer is defined as an innovative, technological, socio-technical process interaction and exchange, transfer and adaptation of knowledge, skills, experience, technology, information, industrial property, machinery and equipment on commercial or non-commercial basis. Another scientific approach to defining the nature of technology transfer is its interpretation as the creation and transmission to the practical organizations or the intellectual property market of scientific and technological achievements, processes of their usage, ideas and concepts, know-how, property rights. The investigation of the nature of technology transfer revealed its basic kind – commercial. Nowadays, in the theory and practice the technology of transfer remains controversial issues of delimitation of concepts such as "technology transfer" and "commercialization of intellectual property". We propose to interpret the concept of "technology transfer" as the process of changing the ownership of the object of technology or its component in a commercial or free form in order to achieve a new better economic or social impact, production or getting different result. The proposed definition allows determining the object and the subject of technology transfer and specifying its purpose as a form of economic activity. According to the results of the study, the most controversial features of technology transfer are defined. They include objects and nature of the transfer. Based on the analysis of basic scientific approaches to determine the objects of transfer, their main types were found, including knowledge, property rights on intellectual property, information on commercial or non-commercial basis.