The following is a list of the articles that appear in the October 2009 issue of Technology Transfer Tactics monthly newsletter. If you are already a current subscriber click here to log in and access your issue. Not a subscriber already? Subscribe now and get access to this issue as well as access to our online archive of back issues, industry research reports, sample MTAs, legal opinions, sample forms and contracts, government documents and more!

Technology Transfer Tactics,
Vol. 3, No. 10 (pp 145-160) October 2009

• TTOs seek to bolster start-up activity with VC type funds. With the dramatic downturn in the economy exacerbating the already challenging problem of generating early stage funding for university start-ups, a number of TTOs have taken the bull by the horns and launched their own VC-type funds. Some say this may be more than just a reaction to a current crisis; it may signal a new tech transfer paradigm. For universities looking to help their startups
• Hospital TTO takes a different path to commercialization with private sale of IP. The Technology Transfer Office at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) is veering off the traditional path to commercialization with a pending sealed-bid private sale of a portfolio of 10 issued U.S. patents and foreign patent application for noninvasive substance detection, including a noninvasive blood glucose monitor. The TTO has hired the IP brokerage firm ICAP Ocean Tomo, LLC, in Chicago to conduct the private sale for the hospital, which is affiliated with the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. The two institutions have an inter-institutional agreement for CHLA to handle licensing for this IP. CHLA had tried the traditional commercialization route with this particular technology
• When times get tough, TTOs turn to students for extra manpower. Economists say the country is on the verge of a recovery, but businesses and universities are still in cost-cutting mode. They’re slashing budgets, curtailing programs, and implementing hiring freezes. At the same time TTOs are under increasing pressure to bring in fresh revenues. With few if any options for adding staff, many offices are turning to the student body for the help they need
• TTOs report successful faculty outreach with informal “entrepreneur office hours.” Faculty members with novel ideas for inventions or companies are busy people with packed schedules. So as technology transfer professional plan outreach efforts, taking a decidedly informal approach – rather than attempting to cajole researchers into scheduled meetings – may improve your results
• TTO launches entrepreneur-in-residence program without spending a cent. At the University of North Carolina Charlotte, revenues are down, but high unemployment and economic uncertainty are driving students and area business to the schools doors. That puts pressure on the TTO to get more done, but without additional resources to handle the workload
• Legal Q&A. U.S. rules regarding co-ownership of patents don’t apply in other countries
• Get your TTO ready for ‘tech transfer 2.0.’ A number of TTOs in the U.S. have gotten their feet wet in the world of social networking, but what Brian McCaul, ICT, director of commercialization & exploitation in the Enterprise and Innovation Office at the University of Leeds (UK), proposed recently is well beyond what any have attempted and perhaps beyond what many have imagined: a new world of tech transfer – or knowledge transfer in common European parlance – in which social networking forms the foundation for a revolution in the way innovation makes its way into the marketplace

Posted October 22nd, 2009 under Current Issue