Recent experience with a Sponsored Research Agreement (SRA) has underscored the potential miscommunication that often keeps universities and corporations from peacefully coming to successful negotiations. So, I’d like to take some time to weed through what each party can (and cannot do) and why, in an effort to clear up some misconceptions and potential frustrations.
An article on Huffingtonpost.com’s Tech section about university technology transfer offices (TTOs) recently caught my attention, and I’d like to take a moment to respond to it.
You may have noticed that several universities and government labs are forming ready-to-sign patent licensing programs or other initiatives with new licensing terms. Many of these programs target startup companies, like the University of North Carolina’s Express License program or the DOE’s America’s Next Top Energy Innovator Challenge program, which offers startups options to license patents for $1K.
Our most recent poll asked the question: What does your TTO do with a technology once the patenting process has started: wait for the patent to issue, assess the tech’s fit in the market, or begin marketing? Results are in and, as you can see below, th …
Interesting news in the world of technology licensing: the Department of Energy recently announced ‘America’s Next Top Energy Innovator Challenge’—a licensing program offering special terms to startup companies on a set of patent licenses from national …
College sports fans in the Triangle could learn a lot about healthy competition from the kids we saw at the North Carolina FIRST Robotics Competition. Embodying the concept of Gracious Professionalism™, these students helped each other despite being in a competitive event. It was fabulous to watch. I’ve been thinking about this after participating in a roundtable discussion with members of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and in thinking back on a conversation I had over coffee with a local entrepreneur.
Yesterday I had the great privilege to participate in a roundtable discussion with several members of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in Durham’s American Tobacco Historic District. As he kicked off the meeting, Obama’s top economic advisor Austan Goolsbee said that we “will never have a clearer line to the President’s ear than with the members of his Jobs Council that are here today.” Those members included AOL founder Steve Case, Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg, Citigroup chairman Richard Parsons, and UBS Americas chairman Robert Wolf. The topic? Entrepreneurship.
For technology transfer professionals getting ready for the next national meeting of the Association of University Technology Managers® (AUTM), it pays to prepare for one-on-one meetings with company representatives attending the conference. This post offers some advice that can really help you dive into these meetings with the confidence, knowledge, and ammunition you need for productive discussions.
As vice president of strategic alliances for the Association of University Technology Managers®, I am working on an effort to expand AUTM’s connections with companies in the physical sciences. You can help by answering this question… Which medical devi …
Monday kicked off the AUTM Eastern Region meeting in Baltimore. It was a day of good discussions and debate about how to encourage economic development through university technology transfer — the theme for the meeting. A series of sessions ran in logical succession on the topic of start-ups, the poster child for economic development.
