This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
A NEW PARADIGM CHANGING THE GAME FOR


TECH TRANSFER OFFICES Generating knowledge and transferring it to the world has been, and remains, the core mission of research universities across the globe. Daniel Nadis looks at how tech transfer offi ces can become more effective in this mission.


Since the Bayh-Dole Act, the ‘knowledge transfer’ mindset has been assailed with chronic doubts, and may be facing unanswerable questions. ‘Publish or perish’ does not sit easily with revenue maximisation, especially in the science and technology sphere. Inside the technology transfer unit, patent prosecution, licence/spin- off negotiations, and collaborative research deals compete for time and attention. Few technology transfer organisations (TTOs) are in a position to be self-funding from transaction revenues, but with dependence on the university for cash comes head count limitations and other operational constraints, especially in diffi cult economic times.


Does this litany sound familiar? Laments such as these have been told and retold, but no quick fi x or sustainable solution seems possible. In the lab, when every direction seems to be a dead end, researchers seek an entirely new paradigm: to address the fundamental challenges of sharing knowledge, while making money from protecting value, all in the context of diffi cult economic circumstances. What might such a paradigm be?


What if one views the TTO not as a small piece of a university culture, but as a small piece of a commercial marketplace? Today, the TTO operates as a tiny element of a not-for-profi t- organisation, whose motivations rarely intersect across the entire range of university endeavour. In most cases, university revenues from technology commercialisation are less than 1 percent of total annual budgetary requirements. Indeed, revenues from selling branded mugs and sweatshirts may actually exceed tech transfer income. From a commercial perspective, such a unit would look like a child’s lemonade stand across the street from an 80-storey offi ce tower. To survive and fl ourish, the TTO’s primary interactions need to be horizontal—across TTOs, across geographic markets, across technologies—and not simply vertical within the university. Looked at from this perspective, TTOs can radically change workloads associated with generating revenue while collaborating to create more valuable transactions.


As standalone businesses, most TTOs today would have unacceptably high risks:


• Sole source supply chain (university IP) Every other business works hard to avoid this situation—they fear being bought by their supplier, being unable to work with competitive suppliers, or being limited from sales because of their unique identifi cation. Ultimately, of course, the sole source supplier can also eff ectively shut them down for reasons unrelated to their own imperatives.


24 World Intellectual Property Review January/February 2012


• Lack of human resources fl exibility Suppose a gold-plated opportunity to triple revenue came along? With a strong story, getting more people would be a no-brainer in the business world. In TTO-land however, the university, as shareholder, rarely supports additional resources for such one- shot opportunities and the deal disappears.


• Poor visibility: suppliers Which TTO can see even half of the possible ‘wares’ of its supplier? What TTO knows far enough in advance of coming ‘products’ so as to create a profi t- maximising ‘auction’ environment? How can a


www.worldipreview.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100