Today we have a special Halloween edition of our monthly “Worth Reading” post. In addition to our usual supply of news items and blogs related to technology transfer, Fuentek is spotlighting costumes related to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) topics and professions. Consider them for your kids (or yourself!) next year.
This summer, the technology transfer office (TTO) at Vanderbilt University conducted an informal survey of members of the AUTM® directors online discussion group on TTO policies and practices regarding returning rights to inventors. I found the results from the 84 respondents intriguing, as should advocates for free agency in tech transfer (including sponsors of the current Startup Act legislation). That’s because this survey showed that the essence of free agency — that is, giving innovators the right to pursue commercialization of their technology — is already in place… and the innovators are not pursuing it. Let’s look at the data.
On May 22nd, Startup Act 2.0 was introduced. This is a revised version of legislation proposed last December that contained questionable provisions to allow university professors to choose their own agents to help transfer their technology rather than be tied to their home university’s technology transfer office (TTO)—the so-called free agency provision. I dug into the new legislation, comparing it to the original wording, to figure out exactly what’s changed (besides the fact that the accelerated commercialization of research provisions are now part of Section 8 rather than 7). Here’s what I figured out.
The urgency is growing surrounding a very important technology transfer issue: the free agency concept. This is the idea put forth by The Kauffman Foundation that university faculty should be able to shop their discoveries to any third party for licensing. A Quick Recap The free agency concept first gained attention in January 2010, when Harvard Business Review called it a breakthrough idea. I blogged at the time that it is, in fact, a naive idea.
It’s time for another installment of articles, blogs, videos, and the like that have caught the attention of the folks here at Fuentek. This month features several items related to marketing, several of which we saw on the weekly IP Marketing eNews (a great free resource, as is its Wednesday counterpart: Tech Transfer eNews).
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