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Volume 1, Issue 1 |
The overall mission of university technology transfer offices is to appropriately protect the intellectual property (IP) created by faculty and staff, and to see that the intellectual property is made available to the public in a useful form. Simply put, technology transfer can be described as the commercialization of university research. Although intellectual property takes many forms (patents, trademarks, copyrights), the licensing of patents is the most prevalent. Licenses usually result in revenue being paid to the university and the inventors based on a percentage of sales.
The magnitude of university technology transfer activities is surprisingly large. According to AUTM's Fiscal Year 1997 Licensing Survey, 11,303 university invention disclosures were reported, 4,267 new U.S. patent applications were filed, and 2,645 U.S. patents were issued. Additionally, 333 start-up companies were formed in FY 1997, with academic institutions receiving an equity interest in 251 of these. Total gross licensing income of $698.5 million was received by universities in this period, with 87% derived from inventions relating to life science, and about 13% from inventions relating to physical science.
Technology Transfer in Manhattan a future issue of MACC News & Views will present details of K-State's technology transfer activities, but in this issue we provide an introduction to the operation and its people. In late 1995, MACC entered into a partnership agreement with the Kansas State University Research Foundation (KSURF) for university technology transfer. Under the agreement, MACC assists KSURF in commercializing university intellectual property by managing the marketing of technologies and negotiation of related licensing agreements. KSURF retains responsibilities for direct university processes from disclosures to patent portfolio management.
In practice, the working relationship is one of a true partnership, characterized by a cooperative team approach throughout the process. Accordingly, MACC provides commercial input during the disclosure and patenting stages, while KSURF provides input during licensing negotiations. During the initial year of the agreement, MACC led the development of a five year strategic plan for KSURF, based upon the findings from a benchmarking study of other institutions.
Clear synergy's are being realized between MACC and KSURF through their overlapping, yet complementary, missions. This is being manifested by an increased rate of start-up companies that “spin-out” university technologies. This, in turn, is increasing the opportunities for institutional and inventor returns in the form of shareholder equity, while preserving opportunities for traditional royalty returns as well. Extended members of the KSURF-MACC technology transfer team are the staff of K-State's Pre-Award Services group, the outside attorney's who write and file patent cases, and most importantly, the KSU inventors.
In the next few issues of MACC News & Views, we will look at how K-State's technology transfer activities compare to other institutions, as well as the overall technology transfer process, from the initial idea to filing a patent, to concluding a royalty bearing license agreement.
