A few months ago, the IP Marketing Blog discussed the OpenUlster program at the University of Ulster in Ireland and its evaluation license. It caught my attention for its efforts to streamline licensing and help mitigate the risks that potential licensees may feel when contemplating a new technology. Here’s how the blogger described it: ‘To take out an evaluation license, which costs just one Pound, the visitor just clicks on the link to download the documents, fill out two forms and return them both to Ulster. “When the license is countersigned by one of our commercialization team, the firm has exclusivity to evaluate that technology,” says [technology commercialization manager Dr. John] MacRae… At the end of the evaluation period… the evaluation license can be converted into a full commercial license.”’
Innovators can often be a huge asset when you are in discussions with a potential licensee. After all, they bring more knowledge and expertise about the invention to the table than anyone else. They also often are a good source of information about potential applications and target markets. But as we at Fuentek have learned over many years of experience, one should never underestimate the strength of the connection between the innovator and his or her invention–and how that can help or hinder the commercialization process. Let’s take a look at a specific example.
Patents have been getting some pretty bad press lately. Between stories about patent trolls in The Economist and on NPR’s This American Life and the patent wars raging between Apple, Google, Microsoft, HTC, Samsung, etc., tech transfer professionals are probably finding their cocktail party conversations getting a bit more interesting… and not in a good way. As the public hears more, some question why we have patents at all. They think that if patents are causing this much trouble, they must be bad. This misconception is a problem that technology transfer offices (TTOs) can and should proactively work to overcome.
Interesting news in the world of technology licensing: the Department of Energy recently announced ‘America’s Next Top Energy Innovator Challenge’—a licensing program offering special terms to startup companies on a set of patent licenses from national labs with the...
I’ve been thinking recently about deals. Well, obviously, we’re almost always thinking about deals! But specifically, I’ve been thinking about those deals that seem to fall into your lap. The bird-in-the-hand deals certainly can save time and marketing resources. And sometimes they make sense given the specifics of the technology, as we’ve blogged about previously. But sometimes the quick deal that seems to make sense at first blush is not the way to go.
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I’ve been thinking recently about deals. Well, obviously, we’re almost always thinking about deals! But specifically, I’ve been thinking about those deals that seem to fall into your lap. The bird-in-the-hand deals certainly can save time and marketing resources. And sometimes they make sense given the specifics of the technology, as we’ve blogged about previously. But sometimes the quick deal that seems to make sense at first blush is not the way to go.
