This study analyses the patenting activities of university science and engineering professors in Canada between 1920 and 1975. Unlike most studies on commercial activities in academia, which typically focus on the post-1980 period and on university practices, we focus on the pre-1980 period and on the individual decisions of professors to patent their inventions. Based on quantitative patent data, we show that patenting, and thus professors’ interest in the possible commercial value of their scientific discoveries made in university laboratories, was relatively common on an individual and informal basis well before the 1980s and the advent of what is now called “academic capitalism”. This contradicts the belief that before that period, universities were a kind of ivory towers in which professors isolated themselves from external influences and engaged only in pure and disinterested research.

本研究分析了 1920 年至 1975 年间加拿大大学科学和工程教授的专利活动。与学术界的大多数商业活动研究通常关注 1980 年后时期和大学实践不同，我们关注的是 1980 年前时期以及教授个人为他们的发明申请专利的决定。基于定量专利数据，我们表明，早在 1980 年代和现在的出现之前，专利申请以及教授对其在大学实验室做出的科学发现的可能商业价值的兴趣在个人和非正式基础上相对普遍被称为“学术资本主义”。这与在那个时期之前的信念相矛盾，