Patents have been getting some pretty bad press lately. Between stories about patent trolls in The Economist and on NPR’s This American Life and the patent wars raging between Apple, Google, Microsoft, HTC, Samsung, etc., tech transfer professionals are probably finding their cocktail party conversations getting a bit more interesting… and not in a good way. As the public hears more, some question why we have patents at all. They think that if patents are causing this much trouble, they must be bad. This misconception is a problem that technology transfer offices (TTOs) can and should proactively work to overcome.

Attention, AUTM® members! You have a chance to have a prime spot for networking with organizations from every major technology-oriented industry, including medical technologies. That spot: The AUTM booth at AdvaMed 2011 and LES 2011 this fall.

Managing intellectual property (IP) is often handled best with a phased approach. Fuentek recommends a strategy that is both proactive and strategic to identify the valuable technologies in your portfolio and then determine the best way to market them. This is captured in our webinar, A Step-by-Step Process for Technology Screenings: Technology Triage for TTO Professionals and Interns. When we originally presented this webinar back in May, we tweeted about some key ideas that were presented about narrowing down your technology portfolio to get to the most likely innovations for deals. The full webinar is available for download if you missed it, or you can get a preview by registering for our free webcast.

Following on the heels of last week’s post about the hottest tech transfer topics on our blog this past year, I wanted to point out a few interesting articles and blogs that have caught Fuentek’s attention in recent months that are definitely worth a read.

Today is the 2-year birthday of the Fuentek blog! Looking back, we have seen some big issues in our industry. We’ve covered quite a few of them here, and a peek at our analytics suggests that there are, indeed, some hot topics. Below is a list of the blog posts that were tops this past year. 

Fuentek is a big believer in the power of a specific, tailored marketing message. Our own marketing communications process follows the AMMO approach: Audience Message Mechanism Outcome. You may have read about AMMO on our blog in the past, but we wanted to highlight a few more details of this approach, specifically related to the Message. So, we’ve put together a free webcast to give you expert insight into the nuances of Crafting Your Tech Marketing Message.

If you’ve been reading the Fuentek blog recently, you already know a bit about the 2012 Strategic Alliances Program Plan for AUTM®. Rounding out our plans for the next year, we’re putting initiatives in place to promote sponsorship opportunities, enhance regional meetings, and attend other association meetings to attract companies from specific industries to engage in potential partnership discussions and attend AUTM events.

I’ve been blogging recently about the 2012 Strategic Alliances Program Plan for AUTM®. An area we’ve been working to assist with is providing valuable information about the state of the art in various industries for the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). A new USPTO program, kicking off this year, will be a big step forward toward this goal.

Earlier this month I laid out an overview of the 2012 Strategic Alliances Program Plan for the Association of University Technology Managers®. Serving a global network of more than 3,500 tech transfer professionals working in academic, research, government, and the private sector, AUTM actively facilitates networking and collaboration between corporations and universities.

As vice president for strategic alliances for the Association of University Technology Managers®, I’m looking forward to the months ahead as we kick off our 2012 program plan with several initiatives designed to improve the core goals and services of AUTM® for its members.