
As we head into the new year, now is a good time to revisit and prioritize tech transfer best practices—that is, efficiently and effectively moving technologies out of university, government, and even corporate labs and into the marketplace. Today we’ve gathered together 10 of our key posts to give you easy access to these tech transfer best practices. Happy reading, and contact Fuentek to learn more about how we can help your technology transfer office (TTO) apply them.

Managing IP proactively is essential for any R&D organization, regardless of whether it’s a university, private company, government lab, hospital, or not-for-profit research organization. Being proactive helps you focus on achieving your goals rather than reactively putting out fires, and it enables more efficient and effective operations. To make your TTO or other IP operation more proactive, consider the following recommendations and guidance.

A common mistake in IP marketing is spending too much too soon on splashy materials with questionable impact. Knowing when to push and when to hold back requires looking at the market, understanding how the technology fits into it, and being realistic about the opportunities. Case in point: Fuentek’s client Kolon.

Today for the final installment in our Marketing Mondays series, I’m going to talk about cultivating your leads. The advice and examples offered here are designed to help your technology transfer office (TTO) stay in the sweet spot of putting in enough time to develop a qualified prospect without wasting time trying to force something that’s not meant to be.

A large percentage of university and government technologies have niche applications. So it’s a treat to have an innovation with broad market potential. So how do you identify the potential licensees? And which do you contact first? Today’s Marketing Mondays post helps you answer those questions.

One of the top topics at any tech transfer industry meeting is technology marketing. Just a few weeks ago, one of the most popular sessions at the AUTM™ Eastern Region Meeting was on the topic of “guerrilla marketing.” We have blogged a lot about marketing strategies and various marketing tools over the years. And as the tech transfer profession has evolved, we have developed new insights that we would like to share. So we’ve decided to get our readers caught up by offering a systematic treatment of the topic in our new series: Marketing Mondays. We will discuss developing effective collateral, strategically reaching out to prospects, and converting the qualified leads into licensees. Of course, any discussion of technology marketing has to begin with the AMMO, which Fuentek developed years ago and has been applying successfully for our clients ever since.

Today, we’re releasing a new webcast that discusses how to develop a value chain to identify whom to contact to get the best market feedback on the technology. The value chain charts the sequence of companies (or collaborating players) that take a product from raw material to final product or service to satisfy market demand. It maps the categories of players within a segment of an industry, providing context about the supplier-customer relationships. It not only outlines the primary players in an industry but also helps you think through how the technology will deliver added value to this industry.

I’m back, with another post about the AUTM® Eastern Region Meeting, which I first blogged about last week. Today’s topic: The workshop session “Strategies to Offload Patents that Are Doing Nothing for Too Long.” This session, which I came to think of as the “couch-potato patent session,” was moderated by…

Like the Boy Scout mantra, there is no substitute for being prepared. Before you reach out to marketing prospects – or even place information about a technology on your Web site – be sure you have the resources to respond quickly. (Hint: If you’re going to be traveling, don’t begin a big email push just before you depart.) If someone makes an effort to inquire about a technology, the best time to hook that prospect is…

We’ve blogged often about how planning for technology marketing helps TTOs be more proactive and efficient in selecting innovations to market. If your TTO is like most, you have more active marketing projects than you have the resources to handle. Therefore, prioritizing (and reprioritizing) your projects is the key to developing a strategic and agile marketing process that will provide long-term value. In today’s Stories from the Field post, I share details of how to apply what we’ve learned through years of identifying high-priority projects.