Reaping Long-Term Rewards from Strategic IP Portfolio Optimization: Stories from the Field
Prioritizing an intellectual property (IP) portfolio is an important, and often huge, task for tech transfer offices (TTOs). In today’s post, I share details of how an effective IP Portfolio Optimization helped a university do more than just prioritize its IP for future technology transfer and marketing efforts.
A 30-Tech Nano Portfolio
A major research university approached Fuentek about screening a group of 30 technologies in the nanotechnology sector. Our “FIT Review” process for screenings provides an objective rating of the technology’s commercial potential, based on the analysis of data on the market need and IP landscape. This separates the wheat from the chaff and identifies those technologies with the highest commercialization potential.
Achieving Efficiencies through Clustering
The interesting part of this story is that our screening revealed more than just those few top technologies where marketing resources should be focused.
Because Fuentek always seeks to provide our clients with the best value, we identified opportunities to cluster some of the technologies into groups for efficiency in ramping up to marketing. These were technologies that had originally been developed for disparate applications and initially seemed unrelated. But Fuentek recognized that they likely would be of interest to the same target companies and therefore should be grouped together.
Positive Results
This strategic approach to technology screening did more than simply point out where to focus or abandon technology transfer efforts to achieve efficient resource allocation:
- Clustering enabled technologies that were rated lower in terms of commercialization potential to be combined with higher rated ones and assessed/marketed as a group rather than individually, adding depth and credibility to our client’s technology offerings.
- As an added bonus, our screening reports helped university innovators make market-based decisions regarding funding of technology R&D, ensuring a better match-up with the market.
- The screening process also identified a couple of areas where the market had moved beyond the university’s technology, so funding to these programs was cut and reallocated to more promising research.
As a result of these outcomes, several key decision makers in the university gained an understanding of the value of proactive technology transfer through strategic IP Portfolio Optimization, yielding greater support for technology transfer activities.
The Lesson
Taking a strategic approach to IP Portfolio Optimization has long-term value beyond the near-term help with prioritizing technology transfer activities.
If you find that your TTO’s tech managers don’t have enough time to proactively identify the high-priority techs, then consider tapping into Fuentek’s services so they can focus on negotiating deals. Contact us today to discuss how Fuentek can provide the help needed to keep your deal pipeline filled.
