Design Right Commercialization by Public Technology Transfer Organizations: Disseminating design knowledge in regional innovation systems

This study examines the commercialization of design rights owned by Japan’s public technology centers, Kohsetsushi, focusing on the factors associated with their subsequent implementation by firms. This study conceptualizes commercialization as a translation process in which protected designs are converted into executable specifications and realized through firm implementation. Using an unbalanced panel of Kohsetsushi, the empirical analysis incorporates regional industrial conditions and treats consultation activity as a key explanatory factor. Because consultation may be endogenous to local demand conditions, this study applies a two-stage control-function approach that first relates consultation intensity to organizational resources and local industrial conditions and then estimates its association with implementation outcomes. The results indicate that consultation is positively associated with subsequent implementation in many industries, although the strength of this association varies across sectors. They also show that industrial agglomeration matters: denser ecosystems tend to raise baseline implementation capacity but often weaken the marginal association of consultation, likely because firms can rely on alternative coordination and problem-solving channels. These findings suggest that public support for design right commercialization is likely to be more effective when consultation capacity is allocated selectively and organized through functional specialization.