Today’s “Worth Reading” post runs the gamut from traditional print journalism to online blogging and to a tweet chat on technology transfer trends. Here are my thoughts about it…

I’m heading back to the Dorton Arena in Raleigh as a judge for the 5th annual NC FIRST Robotics Regional Competition. If you’re local, come see for yourself what these amazing high school students have built in only 6 weeks! If you’re not, check out the live webcast Friday and Saturday via the Yeti team’s (#3506) channel. The qualification matches are Friday from 9:00am to noon and 1:00pm to 5:45pm as well as on Saturday from 9:00am to noon. The final rounds are from 1:30pm to 4:30pm on Saturday.

One of the first posts we had on our blog talked about best practices for a technology commercialization website. I am proud to announce the release of a new paper on how to build an effective website for your technology transfer office (TTO), written …

Lydia Bailey of Online Paralegal Degree Center recently sent me an infographic to share with our blog readers. It was called “What Every Website Owner Should Know about Copyright Trolls.” It was definitely worth sharing, plus it reminded me of something that happened with a client. The infographic begins with a brief overview of what copyright is and how you can (and can’t) use someone else’s copyrighted works. Then it goes on to explain what copyright trolls do, how they do it, and how to fight them. In addition to the valuable information it provides, this infographic also touches on a pet peeve of mine — not so much the trolls, but those who infringe on copyrighted works.

Last week I was invited to participate on a panel at the 2014 AUTM® national meeting. The focus: How university technology transfer offices (TTOs) are shifting their view of intellectual property (IP) terms when securing R&D funding through sponsored research agreements (SRAs). My fellow panelists and I discussed the current models at various universities. Here’s an overview.

Understanding how prospects perceive value will help you gauge their true interest in a potential licensing deal. Just because you’ve designed a cool widget doesn’t mean somebody out there is willing to invest in commercializing it. Potential licensees will be interested only if the technology delivers meaningful value for their company. For the best results, licensing managers should be able to identify the key factors that influence prospects’ decision-making processes — a good bit of which is already on hand if a market-based assessment of the technology was conducted. There’s no substitute for being prepared as you head into negotiations. I explain further in our new “Why Prepare for Licensing Negotiations” webcast, which also includes tips for the kind of research you should conduct in advance. (The webcast is free — all you have to do is register.)

Following up on last week’s Worth Reading post, I’d like to offer this postscript for those of you going the AUTM® 2014 meeting in a couple of weeks. These two items will help you with your networking and prepare you for our panel on incentivizing researcher participation in technology transfer. BTW, have you taken our 5-minute survey yet? Do it now! First off, we have The Innovative and Entrepreneurial University. Released in November, this report from the U.S. Commerce Department and the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE) presents “the increasingly diverse ways in which colleges and universities across America are promoting cultures of entrepreneurship on campus and encouraging students to start companies.”…

It’s time again for our monthly Worth Reading post. It’s a short one — just two items — but it’s on a big topic: patents. “Standing Up to the Anti-Patent Beanball:” This post by Joe Allen on IPWatchdog was in response to attacks in The Washington Post and on Techdirt. Joe’s post is definitely worth reading. The original pieces that prompted it both take superficial and out-of-context portrayals of the value of patents and university licensing. Unlike such balanced analyses as…

This week finds me online discussing a range of topics that may be of interest to our readers. On Tuesday it’s “Achieving Brilliant White Light with Amber LEDs” for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. On Thursday it’s “Using Competitive Technical Intelligence (CTI) Techniques to Assess University Patents” for Tech Transfer Central.

As we leave Thanksgiving behind, work our way through Hanukkah, and head toward Christmas, today’s post focuses on holiday shopping as well as the usual articles and reports of interest to the technology transfer, business development, and R&D communities. Let us know about your favorite science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) gift ideas as well as readable tidbits.