The Future of Education

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a research on the intellectual property, and in particular patented inventions with existing protection from the top 20 Bulgarian universities ranked in the field of economics by the Bulgarian University Raking System. There are 52 Bulgarian universities in total (both public and private). The report will also present the experience of using a patented system for electronic student gradebook and the benefits of in-house IP based innovation.

The report presents:

• The number of patents owned by the targeted universities;
• The share that the owned patents represent from the total number of issued patents with existing protection;
• Ownership of patents that are applicable in the field of higher education;
• How do the number of patents owned relates to their position in the Bulgarian University Ranking System;

The main question that the report aims to answer is whether from the existing data available in the databases and yearly reports of the Bulgarian Patent Office and from the case of patents owned by the University of National and World Economy we can deduce that the targeted universities rely on their own patentable innovations in order to achieve leadership positions in the field of higher education.