Author Archives: Melba Kurman
Start-up patenting strategies have become as sophisticated as those of incumbent companies and start-up patenting costs have reached new heights — the average reported cost of a single patent was $38,000. (See the Kauffman-funded Berkeley Patent Survey of 2008, by Stuart Graham, Tech Sichelman, Robert Merges, and Pam Samuelson). The Survey data on start-up patent strategies offers insight into our current university model of start-up formation. US universities spin off hundreds of new start-ups each year and spend millions of dollars to help their start-ups get patents. By way of background: a university start-up takes shape when an entrepreneur with a passion for the university-owned technology – typically the faculty member or student who invented the technology — licenses it from the university. New university-based start-ups, like most start-ups, want patents but don’t have the money to pay outside attorneys. To help their …
Most US universities maintain three core businesses that earn most of their revenue: Selling diplomas Competing for federal and industry research sponsorships Trying to crack open the checkbooks of wealthy alumni Since the 1980s, universities have ventured into a new line of business: patenting inventions from university research labs and brokering these patents to businesses and start-ups. Thirty years later, university patent holdings have swelled into the tens of thousands and larger research universities spend millions of dollars each year on filing for new patents. Yet, on average, over three-quarters of university patents are never licensed to companies for commercial use. Since US universities own 5% of our nation’s patents, and a growing number of patents in cutting-edge fields such as nanotechnology and biotech, even on human genes, people get worried that needlessly “locking up” basic university research will stifle innovation and create a patent anti-commons. In the terminology …
What better way to study the pros and cons of a major shift in strategy than to examine its impact on a similar organization that took the plunge? In 2005, the University of Utah’s new president Michael Young, in response to the state’s investments in Utah’s knowledge economy, plucked the technology commercialization office out of the research administration division and handed its oversight to Jack Brittain, then Dean of Utah’s business school. The university combined three previously independent units under Brittain into a new division called “Technology Ventures” whose mandate was to accelerate the rate of start-up formation, connect the technology transfer office to the university’s Lassonde Entrepreneur Center, improve the university’s industry research partnerships, and streamline its technology licensing strategy. Most universities house their technology transfer units inside an administrative division that oversees research functions, such as managing the paperwork around grant funding and providing lab animal care. …
Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) provide a shoddy foundation for an effective innovation strategy. Blogger Jeffrey Phillips, in a recent post, argues that FUD-based marketing campaigns value “what’s known and experienced … in a decision process [more] than what’s new or unknown. [FUD marketing] argues that consistency in decision making and loyalty to the status quo are more valuable and more defensible than change.” Here’s an example of marketing based on fear, uncertainty and doubt: FUD-utilizing company X says “if you buy competitor’s , though you will pay less for their product at first, you will pay far more down the road in support fees, poor product security and poor compatibility with existing industry standards.” FUD is a great technique for incumbent companies that have a strong incentive to want things to stay the same. However, a company too fluent in FUD marketing puts …
What were the top ten notable events in 2010 in the world of university technology commercialization and innovation management? In no particular order, here’s what stands out for me. 1. The Bayh-Dole Act turned 30. In an interview with Gene Quinn of IPwatchdog.com, former senator Birch Bayh described the essence of his goals in creating the Bayh Dole Act: “there’s something to be said for the private enterprise system and we think we ought to hook the private enterprise system up with the intellectual enterprise in our universities so we have the entrepreneurial skills of the free enterprise system and the intellectual capacity of our researchers, we meld those together.” At an AUTM-sponsored event in DC, I had the good fortune to hear former Senator Birch Bayh speak about how the Act came to be. Bayh described his and Senator Bob Dole’s bi-partisan efforts, back in …
U.S. research universities churn out over 60% of our nation’s basic, game-changing research. In this era of tight budgets, some universities are offshoring the work involved in bringing on-campus inventions to market, paying companies in India to do market research and low level legal work such as patent prior art searches. It’s counter-intuitive, but could offshoring the commercialization process of university inventions help bust out some of the un-used backlog of innovative university technologies, and actually *help* our universities create domestic, high-value jobs? Offshoring remains a taboo subject in our faltering economy, but it may not be as simple as we have been led to believe. I share the same reservations about offshoring work that any American does — after all, I live in upstate New York, the land of decaying manufacturing cities. However, strange as it may seem, universities that offshore knowledge work such as patent …
With Privilege Comes Accountability by Melba Kurman If the Supreme Court gives universities greater control over the inventions created by their faculty and grad students, the Court should also require universities to publish metrics that shed light into how they are managing their invention portfolios. As the Stanford vs. Roche case makes its way to the Supreme Court, we will see a public and thorough examination of the nuances surrounding ownership of inventions created on university campuses. Good arguments that highlight what’s at stake have been made in favor of, and against Stanford, such as MIT’s amicus brief and Gerry Barnett’s ongoing analysis. If Stanford wins, hopefully there will be consensus in the university technology transfer community on a least one issue: with privilege comes accountability. If universities enjoy complete control over anything invented by their employees, they should also commit to a transparent …
