It's the dream of making lots of money. Historically, universities got patents and were supposed to issue licences to generate profits. In reality, it didn't work, because universities do research and train students, but they're not designed to generate profits. Businesses have the expertise in that area.
The biggest hurdle is probably that people don't want to share the fruits of their research because they think if they keep it to themselves, they can develop products and make money. However, a study has shown that in Canada, the revenue from open science and open patents exceeds the revenue from all licensing. I've seen data showing that for every new company founded, there are 3,000 patents registered. So it's a very inefficient system.