Garbage in, garbage out. It’s a bit of a cliché, but it’s also a truism for data integrity, as Becky Stoughton and I discussed at a recent webinar. Both of us know firsthand the importance of establishing and maintaining data integrity for TTOs. Since we had some valuable insights to provide to TTOs, let’s consider the tweets @fuentek sent out during the webinar in a little more depth.
Because technology transfer offices (TTOs) can greatly improve their performance and productivity by effectively using standard operating procedures (SOPs), Fuentek’s Laura Schoppe and I led a webinar on this very topic. Our insights are based on first-hand experience, best practices, and real-world examples from providing consulting services to dozens of TTOs. We live tweeted the presentation, and today I’d like to revisit and elaborate on those tweets.
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.
In providing technology transfer services to R&D organizations, Fuentek has developed strategies for maximizing team strengths and skills, solving organizational pickles, and communicating value to leadership. Today’s post can help significantly improve your capabilities and operations. For example, when it comes to understanding how your IP management team is performing, metrics are your greatest ally. They help you get where you want to go by accurately revealing where you are.
Having spent 15+ years helping major research universities manage their intellectual property (IP), Fuentek knows a great deal about efficient and effective tech transfer. We’ve also seen that many universities struggle to explain this complex process to their stakeholders — administrators, researchers, and even legislators.
Fuentek has unique insight into how TTOs can improve their operations for more efficient commercialization of intellectual property (IP). And because we heard from so many TTOs that our Road to Tech Transfer was a valuable tool for communicating with key stakeholders, we thought a new infographic would serve as a useful starting point for sharing our insights for efficient and effective TTO operations. Thinking of the technologies in the IP portfolio as plants, we created the Cultivate Your IP infographic to illustrate TTO best practices for (1) channeling your efforts/resources into the seedlings that are poised to thrive and (2) providing the timely care that allows them to flourish and achieve commercialization success.
Most technology transfer offices (TTOs) want to — or have to — respond to frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the technology portfolio. Whether they are routine or ad hoc, these FAQs often come from key stakeholders and focus on TTO performance. As the F in FAQ suggests, these questions are asked frequently. Yet if a TTO frequently is scrambling to answer and struggles to generate the needed reports, then this indicates something is amiss.
This past spring, I had the pleasure of serving as a panelist at the Lab-to-Market Inter-Agency Summit convened by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). This past week, the panelists’ recommendations were released (download the report), and they’re getting some well-deserved attention. And they deserve some elaboration. As summit co-chairs Joe Allen and Diane Palmintera wrote in an article published on Innovation Daily, the summit had an unusual format, with…
I was recently asked for my insights about technology transfer office (TTO) use of external advisory boards or committees. Such boards have been frequently cited in reports and the press as a useful tool — or even a required element — for improved tech transfer operations. The thinking is that external boards provide a means to obtain objective industry/market opinions about new technologies and/or to tap into technical expertise not available within the TTO. I am all in favor of…
I read with interest two recent news stories about technology transfer offices (TTOs) looking to increase licensing deals by addressing two oft-cited barriers: high costs and long negotiation times. The logic: Offering intellectual property (IP) at a super low cost (or even for free) and/or through non-negotiation, ready-to-sign license agreements will result in more technologies getting to market faster. These types of programs have been around for a bit (see my prior posts about free IP and ready-to-sign licenses) and the trend seems to be growing. So let’s look at the two recent examples and consider how to make these types of programs successful.
