As technology transfer professionals, we work closely with our faculty inventors to evaluate early stage technologies for commercial potential, determine the best protection strategy for intellectual property, and market our technologies through a variety of channels in hopes of finding a corporate partner. If we find an interested company, then we negotiate appropriate contractual partnerships to ensure that our inventors, our universities, and the taxpayer benefit from the ultimate products. After licenses are signed, we maintain relationships with the corporate partner throughout the life of the agreement, sometimes insisting upon the return of our technology should our partner decide to abandon its development.
The passage of the Bayh-Dole Act boldly changed government patent policy, providing ownership and control of any invention made with federal funds to the very universities and small businesses that made them. Since its passage over 30 years ago, the Bayh-Dole Act has proven instrumental in recognizing federal patent policy as an integral part of U.S. competitiveness and is the envy of nearly every other country in the world as evidenced by similar legislation in a wide variety of countries including South Africa, India, China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Its beauty is that it aligns ownership and control of patent rights to create market incentives for universities, researchers and companies to develop and invest in patenting and licensing of their new technologies. Without the local pride of ownership and control created by the Act, many of these discoveries would still be languishing on the shelf and no revenues would be returned to fund even more research.
Since the Bayh-Dole Act was passed, more than 5,000 new companies have formed around university research; the majority of which are located in close proximity to the university. In fiscal year 2012, university research helped create on average two new companies a day. University technology transfer creates billions of dollars of direct benefits to the U.S. economy every year. In fiscal year 2012, universities helped create 591 new products.
According to the former President of NASDAQ, an estimated 30 percent of its value is rooted in university-based, federally funded research results.
Technology transfer is not perfect. After all, we work at the riskiest of all stages in the innovation pathway when funding and resources are the hardest to find. The odds of any particular technology making it to market are astronomical, so figuring out what works has not been easy.
Despite the challenges of working at the discovery phase, the academic community and federal agencies continue to find better ways to manage innovations. Technology transfer offices are constantly adapting to changes in the economy, learning best practices from each other, and understanding the marketplace. TTOs have expanded their services to help faculty create new companies. They are creating accelerators, finding gap funding, encouraging entrepreneurship by faculty and students, and rewarding that entrepreneurship. While TTOs focus on negotiating licenses, that is just the means to an end. The end is to get technologies out the door and into the market for the benefit of the public.