THE SOCIAL RATE OF RETURN TO AN INVENTOR'S ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

Abstract

Abstract Inventors, who are considering the commercialization of their inventions,-can often avail themselves of evaluations and advice provided by government supported programs. In Canada, such a service is provided by the Canadian Industrial Innovation Centre (CIIC), through its inventor's assistance program (IAP). In its 20 years of operation, the IAP has evaluated more than 11,000 inventions. The fee (in Canadian [Cdn.] dollars) charged for an invention evaluation was Cdn. $262 in 1995, and these fees cover about half the program's expenses. We compute the social rate of return of the Canadian IAP under different assumptions. The most plausible estimate is a social rate of return between 36% and 70%.