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The commercialization of university research findings is not wholly new. Nevertheless it has risen sharply in the last 30 years in the industrialized world, particularly in North America. The US is clearly a driving force in this boom: anxious to preserve a threatened economic and technological primacy, US federal authorities quickly created instruments for a more systematic exploitation of the innovative potential of their universities, among which legislation concerning intellectual property and research such as the Stevenson-Wydler and the Bayh-Dole Acts. The American university experience and the Bayh-Dole Act became widespread mandatory references – some would say infaillible incantations – often cited yet not always examined. However the effects of the Bayh-Dole Act on increasing technology-transfer activities in universities have rarely received the empirical study they deserve; furthermore, fascinated by the US example and convinced of the effectiveness of its legislation, several countries are seeking to set up juridical frameworks modeled on the American acts. Canada’s situation can help shed light on this issue. Using in particular the figures published by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), the present article demonstrates that not only has the commercialization of research findings developed in Canada without the adoption of a specific juridical framework, but also that, in this area, Canadian institutions have shown a dynamism comparable in many respects to that of the American universities. In this regard, the analysis shows that the impact of the Bayh-Dole Act on the commercialization of university research findings has been greatly overestimated. In their conclusion, the authors attempt to explain why so much importance has been given to this governmental initiative in spite of the empirical evidence.