Forget the ivory tower. Inventions coming out of universities are generating real-world royalties, patents and start-ups. A new survey showed that Stanford raked in the nation's third-highest amount of royalties in 1997, the last year that includes revenues from the Cohen/Boyer patent for recombinant DNA. The top 10 that year:
| School | Royalties* | Licenses | Patents | Start-Ups | |
| 1. | UC System | $61 | 528 | 206 | 13 |
| 2. | Columbia | $46 | 201 | 43 | 4 |
| 3. | Stanford | $34 | 272 | 64 | 15 |
| 4. | Florida State | $30 | 11 | 10 | 1 |
| 5. | M.I.T. | $20 | 255 | 134 | 17 |
| 6. | Michigan State | $18 | 41 | 37 | 2 |
| 7. | U. of Florida | $18 | 61 | 47 | 0 |
| 8. | U. of Wisconsin-Madison | $17 | 133 | 69 | 2 |
| 9. | Harvard | $13 | 232 | 39 | 1 |
| 10. | Carnegie Mellon | $13 | 19 | 4 | 3 |
*Adjusted gross license income received, in millions
Source: Association of University Technology Managers
Source: Association of University Technology Managers
