In this post, we offer advice to small businesses preparing proposals in response to NASA’s 2022 SBIR/STTR solicitations. This federal program allows U.S. companies with fewer than 500 employees to pursue their innovative R&D while answering the federal government’s interests. Among our top 5 tips: start required registrations ASAP, request TABA funding (we can help with that), and don’t wait until the last minute to submit!

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.

Only a small percentage of SBIR/STTR companies request an often-overlooked funding resource to help them shape their commercialization plans. That’s why we were happy to contribute to a Technology Transfer Tactics spotlight article to help spread the word about how small businesses can tap into the TABA program.

Small businesses submitting Phase I proposals to NASA this Friday have a valuable opportunity to request up to $6,500 in additional funding for Technical and Business Assistance (TABA). A relatively new program, TABA provides funding that is separate from the R&D budget for your SBIR/STTR project. So, TABA lets you obtain valuable market data and commercialization guidance at no additional cost to you.

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.

We at Fuentek are thrilled to share some exciting news for one of our clients. Kolon Industries will receive the Display Component of the Year Award for its Colorless Polyimide (CPI™) film. And later this year, Kolon’s cutting-edge material will be in the pockets of everyone with the Samsung Galaxy X—the only phone in the world with a foldable display.

We at Fuentek are big proponents of actively managing the intellectual property (IP) portfolio as a strategic asset. This is as important for companies as it is for universities, government agencies, and the like. So, Fuentek teamed up with PatSnap to offer a series of free webinars to help companies get the most out of their IP portfolios. Today’s post provides an overview of—and, more importantly, easy links to—that webinar series.

Lots of best practices for technology transfer offices (TTOs) also apply to startups. To leverage that insight, I recently spoke with entrepreneurs in New Hampshire about how to get great feedback from prospective customers when getting a startup off the ground, offering a new product (or service), or breaking into a new market. Similarly, in the tech transfer world, licensing success can be optimized by obtaining robust and comprehensive market feedback through expert interviews. This feedback will inform your strategy for approaching the market as you ramp up to marketing a technology for licensing. For example,…

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…

Last week, a tech transfer professional at a university asked me which patent analysis tools Fuentek uses in our market-based technology assessments. Our conversation then evolved into a discussion about how we use patent mapping as well as the value patent maps provide in evaluating a technology’s commercial potential. I’d like to share with you the perspective that I shared with him. Let me begin by being crystal clear: I firmly believe that analysis tools providing visual maps of the patent landscape play a useful role in…