Technology Transfer Offices

NIMH Technology Transfer Office, 24 358 Nimicor, molecular formula and structure, 5 128t... 

Technology transfer offices, 24 381-382 Technology transfer opportunities, maximizing, 24 362... 

To show how we have addressed these issues at Caltech in the entrepreneurial arena, I will discuss two areas. One is the Caltech Technology Transfer Office and the other is the Entrepreneurial Fellows Program, which I have been working on for the past year and a half. 

The Caltech Technology Transfer Office has issued approximately 40 to 50 patent licenses and options each year. That makes it approximately number three in the nation, which is remarkable for a comparatively small institution. In short, the Technology Transfer Office succeeded because it convinced the faculty that they were there to serve the professors, not the administration or the venture capital community. 

A mutually beneficial partnership was formed as the Technology Transfer Office demonstrated it could move with simplicity and speed. It was able to achieve high commercialization productivity, and I would argue that this was done without interfering with the academic mission. 

Kenneth A. Pickar I agree. There is a need. There are programs on campuses for entrepreneurial students but much less so for entrepreneurial professors. One exception I attended recently was at the UCLA medical school where, under the aegis of the UCLA Technology Transfer Office, the Tech Coast Angels, a Southern California investment group, put on a seminar for about 40 faculty on the capital acquisition process. 

Richard Koehn I do not think the universities have any idea how intellectual property laws relate to the general research mission of the institution or its desire to exploit the fruits of that research through commercialization. It is completely different when you are doing research in chemistry on a particular area and you see some particular applications in mind, but you are actually utilizing patented procedures or processes in that research. Have you violated the patent The question of a patent violation in research laboratories is extremely sophisticated, and most technology transfer offices at universities do not know that the issue exists or how to think about it. Now that the universities are thinking about exploiting the commercial value of a project, they need to ask what process was used to produce the fruits of that project. That is a different level of sophistication. 

In academic environments, the establishment of industrial property and technology transfer offices has arisen from the increased activities to protect inventions, the need to transfer technologies to enable their production, and from legal requirements for obtaining patents, all driven... 

From the company perspective, it is essential that all action items that come to the attention of the center are followed up and acted upon. From the perspective of the center, it is important that commitments to companies are implemented. Having a Technology Transfer Office with extensive industrial experience and whose native language is industrialese is essential. We professors speak professorese, and a translator is a necessary ingredient to building an effective and sustainable partnership with companies. 

As far as initiatives in setting up companies are concerned the chemistry department has been involved with a variety of enterprises including those listed in Table 7.5. The department has then been able to contribute to the university a sum close to 100 million over the last ten years. The elfort has been greatly aided by Oxford s technology transfer office, Isis Innovation Ltd. 

Government provides many different opportunities for employment in intellectual property law. These opportunities may be with federal agencies such as the USPTO, government technology transfer offices such as at The National Institutes of Health (NIH), as well as Congress and the executive branch. 

University Technology Transfer Office Another source of employment for the intellectual property professional is the university technology transfer office. Since the passage of the Bayh Dole Act in 1980, which provides for universities to own inventions developed through federal government funding, many universities have builf sophisticated offices to identify and protecf infellectual properly developed by... 

Technology transfer occurs in many ways, be it through research publications, conference presentations, or through increasingly more sophisticated concerted institutional efforts coordinated by academic technology transfer offices. Each institution that actively engages in technology transfer does that for a multitude of reasons. Here are some of them ... 

Technology transfer offices can be quite large (40+ people) or very small ( an army of one ), or just about anything in between, with the vast majority having fewer than ten people. These offices often work very closely with contracting and sponsored research units, but are sometimes separate from contracts functions. 

As an inventor, protection of intellectual property is paramount. Protecting your idea through appropriate disclosure is an important and complex step in the translation process. Most hospitals and academic institutions have Technology Transfer Offices with expert personnel that will advise you on how best to protect your idea and proceed through the disclosure process. There are important concepts that you should become familiar with. Intellectual property refers to any idea that is of value. It may be a trade secret (undisclosed way of doing something), but is most commonly documented in the form of a patent. 

Secondary market intelligence is derived from the medical literature and commercial databases and reports. Secondary intelligence is used to confirm estimates of the size of the market and defines the competition. Technology Transfer Offices are valuable sources of market inteUigence assistance. 

We are grateful to the National Science Foundation, the DOD STTR program and the University of Michigan Technology Transfer Office for the support of this work. 

Siegel, D.S., Waldman, D. and A.N. Link. 2002. Assessing the impact of organizational practices on the productivity of university technology transfer offices an exploratory study. Research Policy. 31 1-22. 

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