The University of Virginia invites nominations and applications for the position of Executive Director of the University of Virginia Patent Foundation (UVAPF).

The University of Virginia (UVA) is seeking a dynamic, creative and innovative individual to lead the UVAPF. The University is dedicated to transforming its technology transfer process by focusing more broadly on innovation, partnerships and commercialization as a means for these new ideas and products to have the greatest positive impact on society. Reporting to the Board of the UVAPF and via a dotted line to the Executive Director and Associate Vice President for Innovation Partnerships and Commercialization, the Executive Director will play a pivotal role in the transformation, and will be central to the development and execution of a robust strategy for innovation and intellectual property at the University.

Although the University will consider a range of profiles, expressions of interest are sought from candidates possessing the following:

Required Qualifications

• Advanced degree in science, business-based discipline and/or law is preferred; masters degree with significant relevant experience may be considered in lieu of advanced degree;
• Thorough understanding of technology transfer and its complexities in an academic institution;
• Ability to value early stage technology, to develop marketing strategy and to negotiate good business agreements;
• Experience in the corporate and venture worlds in deal-making and knowledge of the needs in the marketplace;
• Exceptional ability to communicate with individuals at all levels within the organization, as well as with external board members, university leaders and industry partners;
• Demonstrated capacity for establishing strong staff development, mentoring, internship, and related initiatives designed to enhance the breadth and depth of technology transfer and business development experience available for the university’s innovation management initiatives;
• History of serving as a distinguished professional and team player with a strong track record in management, negotiation, entrepreneurship, corporate in-licensing, venture funding and/or due diligence experience for technology or biosciences ventures;
• Strong knowledge of patent law and technology licensing and commercialization, including direct experience in drafting and negotiating intellectual property contracts

Preferred Qualifications

• Relevant experience in university research;
• Working knowledge of venture capital and angel financing, policies/issues relevant to starting companies based on University research;
• Administrative experience in industry or in the management of research programs or corporate relations

To apply, send cover letter, curriculum vitae, and names of three potential professional references to executivesearch@virginia.edu. If nominating an individual for this opportunity please include the nominee’s contact information.  The position will remain open until filled and the search will be carried out with full confidentiality; candidates will be notified before references are contacted.  For further information, please contact Catherine Brand at (434) 982-5683 or by email at  executivesearch@virginia.edu.

The University of Virginia is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

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1. “Better the devil you know.” Prove your in-depth knowledge of your own business and that of your primary competitors by presenting potential investors with a comprehensive business plan a week before your pitch meeting. Include a description of your business, financial projections for the current and next two fiscal years, and background on your management team, short- and long-term business objectives, key products and services, target market, competitors, and main suppliers. The business plan also should touch on your marketing and sales strategies and your long-term exit plan. “Writing a detailed business plan requires succinct writing skills, clarity of style, and in-depth knowledge of your marketplace,” Hillman writes.

2. Protect your brilliant idea. If your business comprises an original idea or design, protect it to prevent competitors from replicating it. Clearly outline any patents, trademarks, and other proprietary measures that are pending or in place. Create a prototype of your product design and organize beta tests.

3. Put your money where your mouth is. Show potential angel investors how you’ve invested your own money in the business to demonstrate that you are “serious, passionate, and believe that the business will be successful,” Hillman says.

4. Know your angels. Research potential investors to learn the types of industries and companies they target, how much they typically invest, and what type of return they seek. Approach angels that have invested in businesses with a similar size, turnover, and risk profile as yours.

5. Know your numbers. Understand your company’s current financial position and provide realistic forecasts for the next several years. “Take a calculator with you,” Hillman says. “There is no shame in saying you always carry a calculator so there is absolutely no room for error.”

6. Be a master negotiator. Go into the pitch meeting knowing your bottom line. How much of your business are you willing to give away in return for the investment you seek?

7. Have the patience of a saint and the persistence of a true entrepreneur. You may be lucky and find an angel investor during your first pitch, but the process is more likely to take three to six months. Be tenacious yet humble, confident yet selfless.

8. Leverage your network. If an angel likes your idea but not your market niche, ask about other investors with different investment criteria who may be interested. Ask your mentors about individuals in their networks who may consider taking a stake in your business. “Leverage your mentors’ little black book,” Hillman advises.

9. Heed all good advice. After every pitch, ask the investor for feedback. Even if the pitch is successful, you could learn to improve your technique, which could stand you in good stead when you pitch to another potential investor.

10. Seek all the help you can get. Pitching to angel investors is one of an entrepreneur’s most important — and daunting — activities. Work with outside experts to prepare your business for private investment and to locate angels who will be receptive to your pitch.

Source: Rockstar Group

Through a patented low-energy electrolysis process, the GreenBox converts ammonia and urea in wastewater to hydrogen, nitrogen, and pure water. The electric current in the device creates an electrochemical reaction that oxidizes urea and converts it into carbon dioxide, which is then sequestered in the electrolyte material in the machine. The box also produces hydrogen energy. “It’s a synergistic technology,” explains company CEO Kent Shields. “By reducing emissions, you also get a free, clean source of energy.” The technology could help a variety of industries — from the military and agriculture to wastewater treatment operations and commercial construction companies — to deal with the disposal of ammonia, which the Environmental Protection Agency considers a serious environmental toxin. Urea electrolysis also could be used to produce ammonia for selective catalytic reduction of nitrogen oxide emissions, Shields says.

In the meantime, Ohio U officials have even bigger hopes pinned on drug development spinoff Interthyr Corp. as their next commercial blockbuster, following on the heels of Diagnostic Hybrids — a maker of test kits for viral infections and thyroid diseases that was sold in January for $130 million to San Diego-based Quidel Corp. After investing $1 million in Diagnostic Hybrids, the university’s take from the sale was a hefty $35 million.

Interthyr has already started to generate some cash for the university — $20,000 last year — thanks to a test for the thyroid disorder Graves’ disease. The company’s still-unnamed investigational drug for inflammatory autoimmune disorders works by blocking signals from a Toll-like receptor that initiate an autoimmune response in cells. Principal investigator Leonard D. Kohn, MD, hopes to file for an investigational new drug application by the end of 2011, which would allow Interthyr to begin testing the drug in humans with the goal of getting it on the market around 2015.

Sources: Power Online and MedCity News

Take a look at the individual titles included in the library:

• Escaping the Valley of Death: Overcome the Funding Gap for Early-Stage University IP
• Launch Your Own VC! Create Your Own Funding Vehicle For University Technologies
• VCs and Angels speak to TTOs: ‘Here’s what we want to see — and what we don’t’
• The Perfect Elevator Pitch: Sell Your IP in 3 Minutes or Less!
• Start-up Best Practices: Funding Options and Opportunities
• Start-up Best Practices: Pitching Techniques To Get The Funding You Need

For complete details and to order, CLICK HERE.

Research findings indicate that biobutanol provides 30% more output power than ethanol and can be used in existing cars without modification. The fuel is made from the two main byproducts of whisky production: pot ale, which is the liquid from the copper stills, and draff, or the spent grains. Scotland’s £4 billion whisky industry generates 1,600 million liters of pot ale and 187,000 tons of draff every year. “This is a more environmentally sustainable option and potentially offers new revenue on the back of one Scotland’s biggest industries,” says Martin Tangney, director of the Biofuel Research Centre.

Source: Science Business

The high-density infrared technology enables large areas to be clad rapidly with wear- or corrosion-resistant metal or cermet coatings. The technology allows metallurgical bonding of metal and ceramic coatings to be applied rapidly and at low cost to large areas that are difficult to reach, such as ship decks, building supports, reactor vessels, bridges, and pipes. Additional benefits include the reduced use of natural resources, potential energy conservation, and less reliance on environmentally damaging substances such as chromate primers to protect large structures.

A second ORNL technology that extends the life of light-emitting diode (LED) lamps has been licensed to LED North America of Oak Ridge, TN. The exclusive license covers a graphite foam technology developed by James W. Klett, PhD, a researcher in ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division. LED North America plans to use the graphite foam to passively cool components in LED lamps, which are increasingly sought for applications such as street and parking garage lighting.

Cooling LED lamps is critical to increasing their efficiency, considering that each 10-degree decrease in temperature can double the life of the lighting components. Using graphite foam to manage the heat of LEDs more efficiently could help extend the lamp’s lifespan and lower its price, making the lamps more attractive to a broader consumer base. In addition, graphite foam’s high thermal conductivity, low weight, and easy machinability give the material greater design flexibility and make it a lighter and more efficient cooling option. “While this technology will reduce temperatures and increase the life of the LED lighting systems, what it will really do is save municipalities millions of dollars every year in replacement fixture costs [and] maintenance,” Klett says.

Sources: Nanowerk and Nano Patents and Innovations

Lieber and colleagues say nanoFETs could be used to measure ion flux or electrical signals in cells — particularly neurons. The devices also could be fitted with receptors or ligands to probe for the presence of individual biochemicals within a cell. Aside from their size, two features allow for easy insertion of nanoFETs into cells. First, Lieber and colleagues found that by coating the structures with a phospholipid bilayer — the material found in cell membranes — the devices are easily pulled into a cell via membrane fusion, the same process used to engulf viruses and bacteria. Secondly, introducing triangular “stereocenters” — essentially, fixed 120-degree joints — into nanowires in the proper orientation creates a single V-shaped 60-degree angle, enabling the construction of a two-pronged nanoFET with a sensor at the tip of the V. The two arms then can be connected to wires to create a current through the nanoscale transistor.

Source: Biology News Net

• TTOs: Fast-Track Your Innovations — Wednesday, September 15, 2010
• Get Your Student Body on the Innovation Team — Thursday, September 23, 2010
• Best Practice Mentorships and Executive-In-Residence Programs — Wednesday, September 29, 2010

At this point, the device is little more than a thin strip of dark blue organic-based magnet layered with a metallic ferromagnet and connected to two electrical leads. Still, the researchers successfully recorded data on it and retrieved the data by controlling the spins of the electrons with a magnetic field. Moving electrons through circuit boards creates heat, and cooling them requires a lot of energy, so chipmakers are limited in how closely they can pack circuits together to avoid overheating. Flipping the spin of an electron requires less energy and produces hardly any heat, Epstein explains, so spintronic devices could run on smaller batteries, resulting in lighter battery packs for soldiers in the field and individuals commuting to business meetings. The patented technology should transfer easily to industry, adds postdoctoral researcher Jung-Woo Yoo. “Any place that makes computer chips could do this,” he says. “Plus, in this case, we made the device at room temperature, and the process is very eco-friendly.”

Source:  PhysOrg.com

The Navy Yard “is perfect as a test bed,” adds John Grady, executive vice president of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp., which manages the Navy Yard for the City of Philadelphia. The Navy Yard’s inventory of 200 buildings provides a complete and diverse set of “lab rats,” including a mixture of old and new factories, offices, warehouses, and research facilities. Eventually, residences will be added to the mix. The Navy Yard also has its own unregulated power grid, enabling researchers to experiment on the relationship between buildings and the power grid without affecting the city’s power system. Because buildings account for nearly 40% of U.S. energy consumption and carbon emissions, research from the project could lead to reduced energy use, less pollution, and more jobs in the building-efficiency industry, according to officials.

Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

The solution that Strassner and his colleagues at MST came up with is the Technology Acceleration Program or TAP, a process whereby the university is earmarking a portion of its earnings from patents into proof-of-concept funding, designed to get some of the most promising IP further developed. “We decided that it was a good use of the funds to put them back into researchers’ hands and let them do a little bit more work to make their inventions more attractive to the market,” says Strassner.

In its first year, MST is targeting about 22% of the school’s licensing income to fund the TAP effort, but researchers have to apply for the funds just as they would seek other types of grant funding, says Strassner. “We set up some very basic criteria so that in order to be eligible for the grants, you [must] have disclosed the technology to the technology transfer office, and the TTO has to have proceeded with a patent filing so that the only projects we are investing in are projects we have already [decided] are valuable,” he explains. “We aren’t going to invest [the royalty dollars] in basic research. It has to be building on something.” A detailed article on the TAP initiative appears in the August issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. To subscribe and access the full article, plus three years of archived best practices, CLICK HERE.

Conventional liquid crystal displays (LCD) contain two layers of polarizers, a color filter sheet, and two layers of electrode-laced glass in addition to the liquid crystal layer, so only about 5% of their back-light travels through them and reaches our eyes, Guo says. Chemical colorants for red, green, and blue pixel components must be patterned in different regions on the screen in separate steps. Guo’s color filter acts as a polarizer simultaneously, eliminating the need for additional polarizer layers. Because the new displays contain fewer layers, they would be simpler to manufacture, according to Guo. The university is pursuing patent protection for the innovation and is seeking commercialization partners to help bring the technology to market.

Source: Science Blog

Today’s ventilators use continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) to keep a continuous flow of oxygen through the lungs of infants using tubes inserted into the nostrils. Pressure is maintained on the exhalation end of the tube by sticking it in water. When an infant breathes out, he or she sends a stream of bubbles that are a sign of small pressure vibrations transmitted back into the lungs. The Hansen ventilator transmits higher pressure and lower frequency vibrations than the conventional systems to make sure there’s always sufficient pressure to prevent the lungs from collapsing, Hansen explains.

The Children’s team tinkered with a variety of settings to keep the pressure from falling to zero. Eventually, they hit upon a formula that creates just the right balance of pressure to keep the lungs open without pushing them too hard or flooding them with too much oxygen. The device has two simple dials — not a confusing bunch of bells and whistles like standard machines — so that medical staffers could easily adjust the breathing rate. The machine can get its oxygen from a standard industrial tank and be assembled with commodity parts. Hansen estimates the ventilator could be manufactured for $500, compared to conventional ventilators that cost $30,000 to $40,000. The Children’s team has published findings from a rabbit study in Pediatric Research and is preparing the ventilator for clinical trials in India.

Source: Xconomy

Tiny particles of chemotherapy drugs are loaded inside the nano-vehicle. When the delivery vehicle comes into contact with cancer cells, it releases the chemotherapeutic payload directly into the cell. According to Peer, the device can be used to treat many different types of cancer, including lung, blood, colon, breast, ovarian, pancreatic, and even several types of brain cancers. The technology was reported in Biomaterials.

The key to the drug delivery platform is the molecule used to create the outer coating — a sugar recognized by receptors on many types of cancer cells. “When the nano-vehicle interacts with the receptor on the cancerous cell, the receptor undergoes a structural change and the chemotherapy payload is released directly into the cancer cell,” Peer explains. Because the nano-vehicle reacts only to cancer cells, the healthy cells that surround them remain untouched. The nano-vehicle itself is fabricated from organic materials that fully decompose in the body once the payload is delivered. California-based ORUUS Pharma has licensed the technology and hopes to proceed to clinical trials in two years or less, according to Peer.

Source: EurekAlert!

The primary objective of UIRF is to commercialize selected technologies developed by the UI for the purposes of serving the greater public good and for creating community and regional vitality. Commercialization is achieved either by licensing enabling technologies to existing companies or through the creation of startup companies for disruptive or paradigm-shifting technologies. UIRF manages, markets, and licenses UI inventions and the subsequent revenue stream as a not-for-profit corporation under the UI Vice President for Research. UIRF works closely with all UI inventors and advises the Division of Sponsored Programs and Clinical Trials Office staff on intellectual property and contract issues.

Required Qualifications:

• A Bachelor’s degree in a technical field or in a business related field or the equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Reasonable (1-3 years) administrative and program experience.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Exceptional interpersonal skills.
• High capacity for managing multiple and complex business development projects.
• Must be proficient in computer software applications.
• A demonstrated ability to manage simultaneously time-sensitive competing projects.

Desirable Qualifications:

• An aptitude for research and investigation and how it relates to opportunities for technology transfer
• Ad advanced degree including an MBA, J.D., Masters of Science or PhD
• Experience in one or more of the following areas:
  • Market research and analysis
  • Product development and marketing
  • Intellectual property management
  • Project management
  • Contracts and negotiations
  • Business development
  • Startup company experience

This position may be filled as a Licensing Associate  based on experience and qualifications.

Salary is commensurate with experience and qualifications.  UI also offers an excellent benefits package.

Please apply on line using Jobs@UIOWA at http://jobs.uiowa.edu/ Requisition #58341

The University of Iowa is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer.

Women and minorities are encouraged to apply.

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A defensive patent management organization formed by IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat, and Sony to support Linux systems, OIN licenses technologies from its defensive patent pool on a royalty-free basis and works with universities on technology and patent acquisitions, funded research, and defensive publication programs. In this case, OIN is sponsoring the research of Gail-Joon Ahn, PhD, associate professor of computer science and engineering at ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering and director of the Laboratory of Security Engineering for Future Computing (SEFCOM), to expand the collaborative’s impact in supporting Linux’s migration into mobile devices - an emerging market for the open source community. “Mobile device security has recently received considerable attention since it lacks a usable and effective method for handling user credentials,” Ahn says. “Our approach seeks a way to solve critical security issues such as identity theft, fraud, and privacy concerns related to all mobile computing devices.”

Source: Yahoo! Finance

Michael F. Moore, manager of strategic accounts and compliance in the Office for Tech Commercialization at the University of Minnesota (UMinn), agrees that audit results usually work in favor of the licensor and are, at worst, cost-neutral. “We do royalty audits, but we do them on a limited basis,” Moore says, adding that the audits typically focus on licensees with the largest royalty streams. “The difficulty for us is the cash outlay.” Some TTOs respond to the challenge of optimizing royalty audits with homegrown solutions. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) conducts royalty audits using customized checklists “derived from the specifics of the particular license and the type of technology,” explains Andrew Cohn, director of government and association relations. “We look for anomalies like wide variation in reported income for medium-size licensees, which might trigger an audit, but that has not happened for a while. For our most valuable licensees, we audit around every five to seven years.”

To help make the best use of limited resources, Rattner, who oversees his firm’s royalty audit process, has developed a checklist TTOs can use as a “diagnostic tool” to determine whether and how often to audit license agreements. The simple scoring tool helps users to assess the “risk profile” of each license and identifies factors that signal an audit may be warranted. The checklist examines factors such as the timeliness of royalty payments, supporting documentation, and complexity of the royalty calculation as well as the TTO’s level of understanding of the licensed technology, its distribution channels, and commercial uses. Responses are scored on a point system, with the total indicating the agreement’s potential exposure. A detailed article on the audit checklist, including a copy of the entire scoring system, appears in the August issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. To subscribe and access the article, CLICK HERE.

Despite 30 years of development, China’s technology market continues to face significant bottlenecks, including a lack of standardized pricing for technical achievements, a dearth of trading links, an inadequate credit system, and a shortage of commercialization incentives. The IPOS is a market-driven platform designed to advance China’s IP rights strategy by integrating service resources, including domestic and international IP data providers, law firms, accountants, consulting organizations, and training institutions. As a fourth-party platform, the IPOS is expected to provide comprehensive IP rights services to the government, business sectors, science and technology parks, research institutes, and various types of investment institutes.

Source:  People’s Daily Online

Michigan-based Repellex, USA has licensed the technology from the university and has applied to the Environmental Protection Agency for approval to market the compound, which also prevents dogs, cats, rabbits, mice, voles, moles, and gophers from eating plants and young trees, according to Levar. In tests at an Alexandria, MN, tree farm that had suffered huge losses of young conifer trees to field mice, the repellent proved 100% effective. Company officials expect to have Repellex Systemic Animal Repellent on store shelves in March 2011. Tests indicate the repellent is effective for an entire growing season.

Source: Duluth News Tribune

• How to analyze diagnostic claims
• The significance of the “detecting” step with regard to novelty
• The relevance of any “mental steps” involved in patent claims
• What to expect from the Federal Circuit
• The significance of genetic methods as a subset of medical diagnostic claims
• The relationship between information per se and methods of obtaining information.

For complete information and to enroll, please CLICK HERE >>>

Plus, don’t miss these upcoming distance learning programs:

• TTOs: Fast-Track Your Innovations — Wednesday, September 15, 2010
• Get Your Student Body on the Innovation Team — Thursday, September 23, 2010
• Best Practice Mentorships and Executive-In-Residence Programs — Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The technology is the result of more than three years of research and testing. “We’ve readied this ball to withstand the impact of an NFL game, especially with people beating up on it,” Narasimhan says. The group also designed the technology for wide receiver gloves and football cleats. In addition to allowing officials to determine a ball’s exact location — rather than guessing — the technology could be used as a training tool. “I think there is tremendous value for coaches to use it for scouting and training purposes,” Narasimhan says. “Every single time you use it, it gives you hard data on ball location so you can tell if you’re throwing the ball in the right place or catching it the correct way. You use it and then tweak your throw, kick, or catching style off the data.”

Source: Carnegie Mellon University

The portable, easy-to-use, environmentally friendly water filter looks like a tea bag but is filled with active carbon granules that remove harmful chemicals such as endocrine disruptors. The filter not only resembles a tea bag in shape and size but is composed of the same biodegradable material as off-the-shelf tea bags. Inside, the filter is coated with a thin film of biocides encapsulated within minute nanofibers, which destroy disease-causing microbes. Each filter can clean polluted water to the point where it is completely safe to drink, according to Cloete. The filter sachet, which is inserted into the bottleneck, is designed for a single use.

The sachet combines years of fundamental research on water purification, nanotechnology, and food microbiology in a practical way, aiming to provide easy access to clean drinking water for vulnerable communities living near polluted water streams. “The ‘tea bag’ filter represents decentralized, point-of-use technology,” Cloete says. “It can assist in meeting the needs of people who live or travel in remote areas or people whose regular water supply is not treated to potable standards. As it is impossible to build purification infrastructure at every polluted stream, we have to take the solution to the people.” Cloete and colleagues also plan to commercialize the filter into a product that can be used by outdoor enthusiasts for hiking or camping trips.

Source:  Engineering News

1. TTOs: Use Social Media Effectively to Market Your Innovations
2. The Perfect Elevator Pitch: Sell Your IP in 3 Minutes or Less!
3. Tech Transfer Marketing on a Shoestring: Guerilla Tactics in a Budget-cut World
4. Performing Market Research Studies: Testing the Waters to De-Risk Your IP Investments
5. Best Practices for Marketing University and Federal Lab Technologies
6. Shifting Your TTO from Market Push to Market Pull: Finding the White Space
7. Selling University IP in Cyberspace: Best Practices in Web-based Marketing
8. Great Ideas for Improving Faculty Outreach and Enhancing Researcher-TTO Relations
9. Marketing Your Innovations: Best Practices for Tech Transfer Professionals
10. Shrink Wrap Your University’s Technologies for Industry
11. Become Industry-Friendly: Transform Your TTO into a Licensee Magnet

For complete details on all programs and to order, CLICK HERE >>>

The first human iPS-derived cardiomyocyte product to be launched from the new collaboration is an electrophysiological compound profiling service that uses cardiomyocytes on micro electrode array (MEA) analysis. Axiogenesis is the first European company to receive the iPSC technology-related patent license from iPS Academia Japan, Inc., which manages the patents and other IP related to iPSC technologies for Kyoto University.

Source: Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News

The Oulu region hosts a strong 3D internet development community, which has created technologies such as the open-source virtual reality platform realXtend. The CIE will provide hosting and operational management for the Intel/Nokia center, with both companies providing research and technology expertise and support. In addition to financing from the companies, additional funding was provided by Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.

Source: BusinessWire

Miller created the 2.5-pound microscope as his senior design project, working with faculty in Rice 360˚: Institute for Global Health Technologies. The goal was to make an inexpensive, portable, and highly capable microscope that could be used in clinics in developing countries that have limited access to lab equipment and may lack electricity. The microscope was built with off-the-shelf parts encased in a rugged plastic shell. Light to power the 1,000-times magnification microscope comes from a top-mounted LED flashlight. Miller and Rice have contracted with a medical device consultant, 3rd Stone Design, to produce 20 microscopes for field testing.

Source: Science Daily

The invention allows users to see the electromagnetic probe within the microscopic field, enabling them to observe and position the probe more easily in relation to the magnetic materials. Previously, researchers had to use fixed magnets, which were hard to position and often bulky. “This device could be used in catheters or other medical devices to direct magnetically tagged medicines,” DeCoster says. “For example, magnetic nanoparticles linked to a drug [to fight cancer] could be directed using this device.” DeCoster says the device is relatively inexpensive to build and can be used both in air and in liquid, which is of great benefit for medical applications. The device also can be used to effectively control magnetic materials at both the nano- and micro-scale.

Source:  The News Star

The coating marries carbon nanotubes with lysostaphin, a naturally occurring enzyme used by non-pathogenic strains of Staph bacteria to defend against Staphylococcus aureus, including MRSA. The resulting nanotube-enzyme conjugate can be mixed with any number of surface finishes. In tests, it was mixed with ordinary latex house paint. Unlike other antimicrobial coatings, the Rensselaer solution is toxic only to MRSA. It can be washed repeatedly without losing effectiveness and has a dry storage shelf life of up to six months. A paper describing the research was published in ACS Nano.

Source: Nanotechnology Now

Billy Houghtelling, director of the OTT, says NCSU was able to reduce the time its staff needed to find potential licensees from several months to about a week. “There are significant cost and time savings using these analytics tools,” he says, noting that NCSU has about 3,000 technologies waiting to be commercialized.

For the pilot project, IBM provided NCSU with two data analysis systems — Big Sheets and LanguageWare — to seek commercial partners for two NCSU-developed technologies: a device to deliver inhaled medication and a vaccine for salmonella. A basic internet search would pull up millions of web pages related to those items, says Chris Spencer, a researcher with IBM’s emerging technologies group. The analytics tools culled those pages from more than a million to a few thousand, then a few hundred, then about 25. The tools work like search engines, similar to Google or Yahoo, but users of IBM’s tools can set their own search filters and parameters. Each time a search is conducted, users can readjust the parameters until the tool delivers a manageable amount of information, explains Richard Kouri, PhD, a professor in NCSU’s College of Management who also is working on the project.

Sources:  Triangle Business Journal and PR Newswire

A business plan developed by an external consulting firm could have run into six figures, says Mulé, Extended Human’s chair and executive vice president for translational research and the director of cell-based therapies at Moffitt. While developing a real-world business plan, the MBA students were exposed to a business model that’s not presented in traditional case studies because biotechnology firms have valuations tied to different trigger points, says David Bechtold, PhD, UT assistant professor of management. The students also had the opportunity to see how commercialized IP can benefit society — an outcome that’s increasingly important to today’s business students, adds Dean Koutroumanis, DBA, the assistant professor of management who taught the first class.

The success of the Extended Human project led to the formal relationship between UT and Moffitt. Some Sykes MBA students now intern in Moffitt’s Office of Technology Management and Commercialization, assisting in market research, competitive intelligence, and financial modeling. Others have worked on business plans for additional Moffitt spinoffs, including CvergenX, Inc., a Tampa firm developing technology to individualize radiation therapy. (See the recent TTT eNews item here.)

Source:  Tampa Bay Business Journal

Under the terms of the deal, ValiRx has exclusive rights to use the compound to treat, prevent, and diagnose cancer and other diseases. CRT — Cancer Research UK’s development and commercialization arm — will receive milestone payments throughout the development and commercialization of the compound and royalty payments for potential licensed treatments. Under the terms of the license, ValiRx will be responsible for performing the preclinical regulatory development of VAL 201 and will manage the commercialization of potential treatments following clinical trials. “This partnership demonstrates CRT’s ability to maximize its broad network,” says Phil L’Huillier, PhD, MBA, CRT’s director of business management.

Source: Cancer Research Technology

Jahanian and Malan formed the company in 2000 based on findings and techniques developed during their Internet Performance Measurement and Analysis (IMPA) project in the mid-1990s and the Lighthouse Project in 2000. Jahanian worked with the U-M Office of Technology Transfer to facilitate the commercialization of technology for Arbor and took a two-year leave of absence from the university to lead Arbor’s management team and raise capital from venture firms and strategic investors.

Today, Arbor has 275 employees nationwide and is a leading provider of security and network management solutions for global business networks, including more than 70% of the world’s internet service providers and many of the largest enterprise networks. Its R&D operations are centered in Ann Arbor. “The remarkable team that we brought together at Arbor has ultimately been responsible for a seismic shift in the internet security landscape despite ever-changing cyber challenges,” Jahanian says.

Source:  Computer Science and Engineering

Source:  IP Wire

• TTOs: Fast-Track Your Innovations — Wednesday, September 15, 2010
• Get Your Student Body on the Innovation Team — Thursday, September 23, 2010
• Ensure Effective Leadership for University Start-Ups: Best Practice Mentorships and Executive-In-Residence Programs — Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Also, don’t miss the key legal advice from an expert panel coming August 26th in The Future of Patenting in Biomedicine: An In-Depth Look at The Effect of the Myriad Case on Gene Patenting and Genetic Diagnostics. CLICK HERE for details and to register.

The Office of Entrepreneurial Affairs had developed the blueprint for driving researched-based technology into the commercial arena while the Intellectual Property office historically had sought private sector partners to commercialize technology developed at UC. “By bringing the two functions together, we can coordinate better and better leverage our resources,” Air says. “We are also going to be looking to develop some new opportunities (for faculty). This is not just about start-ups and licensing. There are a lot of grants available now that refer to getting technology developed that ask how it can be brought into to the market.”

Source:  Soapbox

“It’s widely acknowledged that, while foreign direct investment continues to be hugely important for the Irish economy, we need to ramp up our own indigenous industries, especially in high-tech, high-potential, export-oriented sectors like life sciences, medical devices, and clean technologies,” says John Scanlan, commercialization director for NUI Maynooth and chair of the ITTIG. “ITTIG has been set up to support the work of the groups established to implement the objectives of these reports.”

The organization’s immediate plan is to help implement a national tech transfer policy across the HEIs to make it easier for industry and entrepreneurs to do business with academic institutions. Ultimately, “the goal is to help increase wealth generation by spinouts from HEIs and help grow the highly skilled jobs base,” Scanlan says. Data from the TTOs collated by Enterprise Ireland show that 35 spinouts were formed in 2009 across the main HEIs, up from an average of 10 per year before the agency began formally supporting the offices.

Source: Business & Leadership

These are hardly STC.UMN’s first forays into patent litigation. Just last year, the TTO settled actions against Toshiba and NEC, both headquartered in Japan, after the corporate giants agreed to take out non-exclusive licenses on the same patent that is at issue in the TSMC/Samsung case. Lisa Kuuttila, STC.UMN’s president and CEO for the past seven years, makes no apologies for the TTO’s aggressive stance. She considers proactive patent enforcement a key responsibility for any TTO. “For one thing, it gives your licensees confidence that you are going to defend the IP, and that is really important in licensing,” she explains. Secondly, Kuuttila stresses that proactive patent enforcement shows inventors the respect they deserve for developing the IP. And thirdly, it’s about protecting the university’s assets, she says.

How does a relatively small technology transfer operation deal with the high costs of patent litigation? By working with a law firm that handles such cases on a contingency-fee basis. While not the norm, there are a few firms that will work with universities on patent litigation in this way. Joseph Grear, an attorney with Chicago, IL-based Stadheim & Grear, works almost exclusively with universities, and he has handled most of STC.UMN’s cases. One caveat, says Grear, is that the firm must consider the case to be worth the considerable effort before taking it on. “Patent cases are very risky. You can lose in a lawsuit several different ways because there are lots of defenses,” explains Grear. While it is almost always advantageous to settle an infringement case without going to court, he insists that clients be willing to go the distance if it comes to that. “Some universities don’t want to take that next step, which means we don’t take the first step,” he says. “When you start telling people that they are infringing, if they don’t prove to you that they are not infringing or that the patent is not valid, and if you then just walk away, all you are saying to people is that you are not going to enforce your patients.” A detailed article on the U of New Mexico’s enforcement activity and practical guidance for other TTOs appears in the August issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. To subscribe and access the entire article, plus hundreds of archived articles filled with best practices, CLICK HERE.

Launched just two months ago, OCIR merges the university’s efforts under one umbrella, making research and commercialization a top priority at the school. Texas State is dedicating $12 million to these efforts, using $4.2 million from an Emerging Technology Fund grant that was matched by the university and industry. “STAR will bring together high-tech business … and it allows us to combine the city and the university in a meaningful partnership,” says Terry Golding, executive director of OCIR.

STAR will provide faculty with a site where they can commercialize IP and will serve as a technology incubator for start-ups, with a focus on green energy and biotech companies. The first phase of the STAR project is a 20,000-square-foot building that will house OCIR administrative offices, wet labs, clean room space, and other research components. Texas State hopes to build about 36,000 square feet of research space. Construction on the first STAR building, estimated to cost $6 million, is scheduled to begin in spring or summer 2011 and take about a year to complete. Funding for the project is in place, and two companies have already located at Texas State in anticipation of the STAR building: MicroPower Global, a start-up focused on a green device that converts heat into electricity, and a semiconductor manufacturer from Taiwan.

Source: ABJ Entrepreneur

The nanodiamond coating is tough, yet smooth. Once adhered to the metals of a joint implant device, the coating is intended to last the life of the device while reducing friction and saving wear and tear on the joint replacement’s moving parts. The technology could have an enormous impact in clinical practice, Vohra says, since some 700,000 hips and knees are replaced in the United States each year yet most devices last only about 10 years. The relatively short lifespan of current devices leads to many repeat procedures. Deterioration of the devices in the body also can cause health problems when small pieces of the implants break off and affect surrounding tissue and bone.

The UAB team has a research partnership with device manufacturer Smith and Nephew, Inc., that allows them access to the company’s hip and knee simulators, which will offer realistic testing conditions for the coating technology. Performance testing could begin by fall 2010, and Catledge and Vohra say commercialization of their nanodiamond coating could be as close as a few years away.

Source:  Newswise

In conjunction with standard imaging modalities such as positron emission tomography (PET) or single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), the licensed technology allows for the detection and monitoring of tumors that have accumulated the imaging compound. “The acquisition of this intellectual property allows GenSpera to extend its current expertise in thapsigargin chemistry to medical imaging modalities and complements our existing business,” says Craig Dionne, PhD, chair and CEO of GenSpera. Additional terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Source:  MarketWatch

Technology Transfer Tactics,
Vol. 4, No. 8 (pp 113-128) August 2010

• U of New Mexico TTO gets serious about enforcing patent rights. With limited resources and no appetite for courtroom maneuvers, university-based technology transfer offices have traditionally been weak enforcers of patent rights. But that stance may be changing.
• Use this checklist to standardize the royalty audit process. Amid the daily hustle and bustle of a busy TTO, tracking and checking the accuracy of royalty payments is one activity that frequently is shunted aside or, at best, performed on an ad hoc basis.
• MO school taps royalty income to boost prospects for fresh IP. Even if potential licensees or investors show an interest in the IP, they inevitably ask for additional data or a prototype. And that’s where the roadblock commonly referred to as the Valley of Death begins.
• Pocket-sized ‘coaching card’ helps inventors when pitching industry. A collaborative group involving the University of Pittsburgh’s Office of Technology Management and its Office of Enterprise Development has developed a tri-fold reminder the size of a business card designed to be carried by inventors when they go to outside meeting.
• Guest Commentary: Tips for drafting and prosecuting patent applications after Bilski v. Kappos.
• Start-up’s goal is recovering ‘rogue IP’ for patent holders. Some estimates suggest that as much as 30% of university inventions are commercialized through the “back door” by their faculty inventors. It was this IP leakage that led three individuals to co-found the aptly named “Rogue IP” to address the problems.
• Ohio’s statewide master agreement with P&G smooths path to licenses. A master sponsored research agreement hammered out between the University System of Ohio and Proctor & Gamble promises a steadier flow of research dollars and a more efficient means of securing lab funding — while also smoothing a path to licensing deals between the state’s TTOs and the corporate giant.

According to the guidelines, examiners should avoid focusing on issues of patent eligibility under Sec. 101 to the detriment of considering an application for compliance with the requirements of Sec. 102, 103, and 112, and should avoid treating an application solely on the basis of patent eligibility under Sec. 101 except in the most extreme cases. “This should be music to the ears of the patent bar and applicants who were previously stopped dead in their tracks by a seemingly insurmountable 101 rejection,” according to Quinn.

Additionally, the Federal Register Notice encourages patent examiners not to merely make naked patentable subject matter rejections but rather to proceed with examination and provide all bases for rejecting claims in the First Office Action, Quinn adds. The Notice says, “Under the principles of compact prosecution, each claim should be reviewed for compliance with every statutory requirement for patentability in the initial review of the application, even if one or more claims are found to be deficient with respect to the patent eligibility requirement of 35 U.S.C. 101. Thus, Office personnel should state all non-cumulative reasons and bases for rejecting claims in the first Office action.”

The Notice also reminds examiners that Sec. 101 is not the sole tool for determining patentability where a claim encompasses an abstract idea, stating that “Section 101 is merely a coarse filter and thus a determination of eligibility under Sec. 101 is only a threshold question for patentability.” This should hardly be considered new, but the way that the Patent Office and many patent examiners have interpreted business methods and computer implemented methods over the last few years suggests that this change in examiner guidance could be monumental, Quinn points out. “It really ought to not be monumental because this guidance merely directs the patent examiners accurately on the law, and patent eligibility under Section 101 has always been merely a threshold question,” he writes. “Patent examiners and the Patent Office for years have not treated it that way, largely ignoring basic principles of patent law. This guidance should put an end to that, and there is real reason for optimism.” The USPTO is accepting comments on the interim guidelines through September 27, 2010.

Source: IP Watchdog

ALSO COMING SOON:

• International Patenting Strategies: Cost-Effectively Expand Your Market and Boost Your TTO’s Revenues — This Thursday, August 5, 2010
• The Future of Patenting in Biomedicine — Thursday, August 26, 2010

Launched in 2000 through Vanderbilt’s Office of Enterprise Development, MI has grown from a DNA-based research tools manufacturer to a full spectrum DNA, protein, and diagnostic applications company. In 2008, MI became part of the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, which is using biotechnology to further personalized medicine. “Vanderbilt University has acted as a wonderful steward to our business,” says Joel Peek, PhD, the company’s CEO. “As MI enters a new era of product development, innovation, and commercialization, we felt it was the right time to strike out on our own.”

Source: Earth Times News

Currently, the sludge is discarded in landfills, and mills are beginning to run out of space for their waste. Twenty paper mills are located in Alabama, and all of their waste streams could be utilized in the conversion process, according to Lee. Combined, the mills would produce 50 million gallons of ethanol each year.

Source:  The Auburn Plainsman

The system relies on a recirculating marine aquaculture technology that is environmentally sustainable and protects species from disease. The system’s core uses filtration units that incorporate naturally occurring microorganisms to clean the tank water using recurring processes already found in oceans. A byproduct of the manner in which the microbes remove waste products is methane, which is captured for use as a supplemental energy source. The technology enables a marine aquaculture facility to be located in urban or rural locations or next to airports or markets, thus reducing the carbon footprint of seafood production.

Source: UMBC News

For more than two decades, the TCC program at SU College of Law has provided a template for the successful transition of research from the laboratory into the marketplace by providing business and legal information and analysis to early-stage technology companies. The Syracuse TCC utilizes graduate students, supervised by faculty, to provide pro bono consulting services to businesses through a clinic-style arrangement for academic credit. Each semester, law, business, and engineering graduate students enrolled in the Syracuse TCC partner with companies to analyze the technical, operational, and legal issues related to a new technology. Since its inception, the Syracuse TCC has undertaken more than 100 research projects on the commercial development of early-stage technologies on behalf of universities, federal research labs, and technology development organizations as well as large, medium, small, and start-up companies.

Currently, the Syracuse TCC collaborates with Niagara University, the Rochester Institute of Technology, Stony Brook University, and Brooklyn Law School to offer a small network of TCCs that similarly advance the commercial development of new technologies in their respective regions. “The economic boom associated with ideas created in research and development is at the commercialization and manufacturing stage,” says Assemblyman William Magnarelli (D-120^th District), who co-sponsored the legislation. “The Technology Commercialization Clinics will give entrepreneurs an added incentive to remain in the upstate New York area and develop their businesses here.”

Source: Inside SU

The testing platform is undergoing clinical studies for further validation and optimization of its methods. Under the license agreement, CvergenX has agreed to make payments to Moffitt when various commercialization milestones are reached and to make royalty payments on the sales of testing services and licensed products. “The license agreement is one of the key milestones established for the company in 2010,” says Mary Del Brady, chairman and CEO of CvergenX. “With the intellectual property fully protected, we are poised to proceed with the commercialization of InterveneXRT.”

Source:  PR Newswire

While attending a class last year, Mullenbach and Johansson heard Sadowsky describe research that he and Wackett had conducted to identify a strain of the common arthrobacter bacteria, which has evolved the ability to break down atrazine since its introduction into the environment in 1959. Modifying the DNA of the microbe, the researchers were able to increase production of the enzyme that initiates bacterial metabolism of atrazine, decomposing it into harmless byproducts. The process can result in much lower levels of atrazine than can be achieved with conventional treatment using  activated carbon. U-Minn holds three patents on the atrazine treatment technology.

Mullenbach and Johansson adopted arthrobacter as their class project, developing a business plan to commercialize the technology, and continued to refine the idea after the course ended. Now the start-up is working with two large unnamed Minnesota companies to affix the atrazine-decomposing enzyme onto filters used in municipal water treatment facilities. The two hope to have a product on the market by 2012 that could realize “significant sales” the following year. The university’s Venture Center, part of the Office for Technology Commercialization, crafted the license agreement granting NewWater the use of university patents in return for licensing fees. The university also holds an equity stake in NewWater.

Source: MinnPost.com

The device exploits the tendency for fluid jets to attach to nearby walls, a principle called the Coanda effect. A control flow attached to a curved collar around the spray causes the spray to change direction toward the control flow, enabling the user to manipulate the material deposition stream. “With CSM, the flow can be precisely positioned without traversing the nozzle or target piece,” Smith explains. “The key significance of this technology is the ability to accurately apply films on large surfaces with a single nozzle and no moving parts in or near the spray flow.”

CSM technology is ideal for long-term operation in high temperature, corrosive, or combusting environments. Ideal applications for CSM include thermal spray coatings that extend the life of products in the aerospace, oil, electronics, textiles, automotive, marine, printing, and other industries. The flow control method can be retrofitted to thermal spray equipment and used to deposit coatings in difficult-to-reach places. The technology has been tested using a device mounted on commercial plasma spray equipment to demonstrate its feasibility in an actual thermal spray industrial environment.

Source: Utah State University

Soybean aphids suck plant sap and secrete sticky honeydew that promotes sooty black mold. When they sprout wings, the pests can transmit plant viruses widely. Fifteen generations of aphid can live on a soybean plant in the summer, with eggs overwintering on nearby buckthorn. “In the field, we will inoculate a plant with just two aphids, and the entire plant will be totally covered by aphids in a few weeks,” Wang says. Unchecked, aphids can lay waste to half the output of a field. Insecticide is effective, but one application might add 10% to the cost of production and kill beneficial insects as well as pests.

Already, the germplasm is the subject of interest among seed companies, which will cross it with their own varieties. The Michigan Soybean Promotion Committee, which invested in Wang’s research and earned first claim on licensing rights for the patented resistance technology, will earn royalties from sale of seed company varieties containing the trait. A portion of those royalties will return to MSU, which in turn will distribute royalties to Wang, the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and the MSU Foundation.

Source: Michigan State University

Last year OSU hired Christine Poon, MBA, as dean of the Fisher College of Business. Poon came to OSU following a 30-year career in the health care industry — most recently as vice chair and worldwide chair of pharmaceuticals at Johnson & Johnson, where she supervised a $25 billion budget. Given her experience, Poon was ideally suited to ramp up the university’s technology commercialization effort, and a major revamp of the TTO is one of several key moves the school is counting on to significantly brighten its licensing revenue picture. “Christine has been a big factor in this redesign,” Whitacre says. “Many of the ideas came from her experience in the pharmaceutical industry. She has lived this process.”

Whitacre and Poon set out to align OSU’s commercialization process more closely with business opportunities. “There were plenty of good ideas coming forward,” Whitacre says. “There were plenty of invention disclosures and patent applications. Where we were falling down was at the next step. The business community looked at us as a bit bureaucratic and slow.” When they measured the structure of OSU’s TTO against other Big Ten schools and U.S. public research institutions, Whitacre and Poon quickly discovered that OSU was typical of many universities that had launched centralized TTOs during the early 1990s. Invention disclosures funneled through a single office, with little winnowing from individual colleges. Like many peer institutions, OSU’s licensing staff — 6.37 FTEs in 2008 — was “underresourced and overwhelmed,” Whitacre says.

Based on feedback from within and outside the university, Whitacre and Poon recognized that OSU was not selective in evaluating technologies. By trying to satisfy all inventors, the TTO was simply spinning its wheels. The solution they proposed was to decentralize the patent and licensing process and vest individual colleges with greater responsibility for vetting invention disclosures. As part of the new technology evaluation process, inventors will develop one-page summaries of their technologies. These abstracts will be discussed and evaluated at the college level by panels composed of internal subject-matter experts and external business advisers. The panels — likely limited, initially, to the three colleges that generate most of OSU’s inventions — will meet regularly to keep ideas moving through the pipeline. Each idea will be scored and ranked “A,” “B,” or “C,” Whitacre explains. Top-ranked ideas will move forward, while those scoring a “B” may be returned to researchers to refine the technology or conduct additional testing. Ideas that merit only a “C” will miss the cut for university investment. A detailed article on the redesign effort at OSU appears in the July issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. To subscribe and access the full article, plus a three-year archive of best practices and TTO strategies, CLICK HERE.

“The most important point of this paper is the fact our glucose sensor remains insensitive to tissue encapsulation for over 500 days,” says David Gough, PhD, professor of bioengineering at the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering and first author of the paper published in Science Translational Medicine. “That’s a big step from a scientific point of view.”

In the sensor’s oxygen detection system, glucose and oxygen from the surrounding tissue diffuse to the sensor, where the enzyme glucose oxidase carries out a chemical reaction in which oxygen is consumed in proportion to the amount of glucose present. The remaining oxygen is measured and compared to the baseline oxygen recorded by a nearly identical oxygen reference sensor. The reduced oxygen signal compared to background oxygen signal reflects the glucose concentration. The effects of exercise and changes in local blood flow to the tissues are largely subtracted out by the differential oxygen sensing system, which includes the pair of sensors side by side in the same device. The implant used in the pig study measures about 1.5 inches in diameter and less than .75 inches thick and could be implanted in a simple outpatient procedure.

The sensor, which could be used by individuals with both Type 1 and 2 diabetes, is being developed in collaboration with GlySens, a San Diego company Gough founded in 1998. The research team hopes to begin human trials of the long-term glucose sensor within a few months. “If all goes well with the human clinical trials, we anticipate that in several years this device could be purchased under prescription from a physician,” Gough says.

Source: PhysOrg.com

1. Basic technology research shows a potential for solving a difficult or expensive problem. At this stage, look only for grants, university funding, and enterprise sponsors, Zwilling advises.

2. Technology development is the transition to pilot-scale research, which may entail false starts but no products. One-of-a-kind technology may shows sufficient technical and economic promise to warrant demonstration, but funding sources remain the same.

3. Prototype development readies a technology for demonstration tests on first-time or early-stage products, which may entail substantial redesign and debugging. Angel investors are interested at this stage, but VCs usually wait until later.

4. Verification involves testing and public reporting of the performance of commercially ready technology using standards devised by an agency such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the Environmental Protection Agency. Results, if positive, are used to market a product directly to customers. VCs may jump in at this stage.

5. Commercialization includes preparing for, financing, and implementing full-scale manufacturing and marketing activities, which requires entering partnerships, arranging for manufacturing facilities, and developing distribution channels.

6. Diversification occurs when the technology is ready to implement using a full-scale marketing plan for an array of products. At this point, R&D should never be mentioned, Zwilling says, even though ongoing efforts for the next product are always required.

“People buy solutions and products rather than buying technology or a new platform,” Zwilling adds. “Investors looking for a near-term large and growing market don’t fund R&D. They defer to government agencies, universities, and large corporations to take that risk. Get used to the message, ‘We love your proposal, so come back when you have some real customers!’”

Source:  Startup Professionals Musings

With the goal of speeding the process and enabling large-scale studies, engineers at MIT have developed a technique that can analyze zebrafish larvae in seconds. The researchers, led by Mehmet Fatih Yanik, PhD, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, describe the technology in Nature Methods. “Ours is the only system that can take a large library of chemicals and screen it on thousands of vertebrates,” Yanik says.

With the MIT system, larvae are pumped from a holding area to an imaging platform, where they are automatically rotated so the area of greatest interest can be seen. This is important because if the larvae are in the wrong position, the yolk or pigmentation on the skin may block the organs the researcher wants to observe. The animals remain unharmed throughout the process. The microscope’s resolution is high enough to image individual cells, and the entire process takes about 19 seconds per animal, compared to about 10 minutes for manual inspection. To demonstrate the system’s effectiveness, the MIT team imaged the neurons that project from the zebrafish retina to the brain. The system also could be used to observe tumor growth, organ regeneration, or stem cell migration, according to Yanik. The team has applied for a patent on the device and is preparing for commercial applications.

Source:  Nanowerk

On August 17th, a top level team of legal experts and TTO professionals will specifically address the implications of the Supreme Court’s Bilski decision on university IP and the future patentability of business methods. Bilski: The Impact of the Final Decision on University TTOs will address many key questions arising from the ruling, including: How will inventions of an “abstract” nature be defined? How will the “machine or transformation” test continue to influence PTO examiners? How should patent prosecution change to help ensure validity? How does the decision affect plans for appeals/reconsiderations? What about existing method patents, and the impact on both value and infringement? For complete details and to register, CLICK HERE.

The following Thursday, August 26th, another expert panel delves into the complex issues surrounding gene-based patents in the wake of the Myriad decision. The Future of Patenting in Biomedicine: An In-Depth Look at the Effect of the Myriad Case on Gene Patenting and Genetic Diagnostics will address host of issues including:

• How to analyze diagnostic claims
• The significance of the “detecting” step with regard to novelty
• The relevance of any “mental steps” involved in patent claims
• What to expect from the Federal Circuit
• The significance of genetic methods as a subset of medical diagnostic claims
• The relationship between information per se and methods of obtaining information

For complete information and to enroll, please CLICK HERE.

Plus, don’t miss these upcoming distance learning programs:

• Bullet-Proof Your License Agreements: Prevent Post-License Disputes and Shed Dead-Weight Licensees — This Thursday, July 29, 2010
• International Patenting Strategies: Cost-Effectively Expand Your Market and Boost Your TTO’s Revenues — Thursday, August 5, 2010

Charles Nawrot, MCG associate vice president for technology transfer and economic development, calls She’s company a logical outgrowth of his research, which focuses on translational studies such as identifying high-risk genes for type 1 diabetes and studying how they interact with the environment to cause disease in humans. She’s company is part of the GRA VentureLab program, established in 2002 to build companies from the research at GRA’s six affiliated universities.

Source:  GRA Perspectives

Initially, the Hopkins students proposed a new blood test to find proteins associated with early labor, but faculty adviser Abimbola Aina-Mumuney, MD, assistant professor of maternal fetal medicine in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, steered them toward building a better device to detect physical signals inside the expectant mother’s body. To find signs of preterm labor, physicians long have relied on a tocodynamometer — a belt attached to a woman’s abdomen — for external monitoring of uterine contractions. The students’ device consists of a ring made of medical-grade biocompatible silicone elastomer that can be compressed and inserted into the vaginal canal at a physician’s office or hospital. Embedded within the ring are sensors designed to detect electrical signals associated with uterine contractions.

The prototype has not yet been used on human patients, but early animal test results are promising, according to the team. The goal is to allow doctors to prolong preterm delivery by as much as six weeks, rather than just a few days using existing technology. Working with the Johns Hopkins TTO, the team has obtained a provisional patent covering their invention and has formed CervoCheck LLC, to advance the project. “We estimate that the cost savings could be more than $44,000 per patient for every preterm birth we could prevent,” says student co-inventor Karin Hwang.

Source:  PhysOrg.com

According to reports from the Chronicle detailing university licensing revenue, UT-Austin generated $11.5 million in fiscal year 2008 — the most money the campus has generated since 1997, the first year for which the Chronicle reported data. UT-Austin also reported the largest amount generated by a UT institution in FY08. However, other large public research universities generated more than twice that amount in FY08. For example, the University of Michigan generated $25 million; the University of Utah generated $26 million; the University of Georgia generated $24 million; the University of Massachusetts generated $35 million; and the University of Florida generated $52 million.

The elimination of the UT System’s Office of Research and Technology Transfer accounts for six of the 19 positions cut in the university’s realignment, which will save $2.2 million in recurring budget costs. According to The Texas Tribune, the six salaries in the TTO amounted to some $586,600. The three executive director positions will advise the UT System and UT health and academic institutions on technology commercialization efforts. Two science directors will report either to the UT System’s Office of Academic Affairs or the Office of Health Affairs, and a third will report to the Office of Finance. Whoever fills the newly posted position will not have the authority to change tech transfer policy, according to UT spokesman Anthony de Bruyn. Instead, the new director will advise and assist the UT System and its institutions in technology commercialization, foster effective relationships between the system and its institutions to coordinate commercialization efforts, and work with VCs to fund the commercialization.

Source: The Daily Texan

• Royalty Rates for Technology, 4th Edition
• Royalty Rates for Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology, 6th Edition
• Royalty Rates for Technology: Medical Devices and Diagnostics Edition
• Royalty Rates for Technology: Computer and Communications Edition
• Royalty Rates for Trademarks and Copyrights, 4th Edition

CLICK HERE for complete details >>

Companies that ultimately receive an investment from the fund must have an established association with CSU, such as a licensing relationship, research partnership, joint venture, or similar business relationship. Money invested in the fund comes from private investors, including individuals and large investment funds, rather than public sources, and the fund will seek to leverage these investments through syndication investments made with other VCs, angels, and private equity firms. CSU Fund I also will look for opportunities to leverage other funding sources, such as federal agencies, through programs such as the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs.

CSU Fund I is based conceptually on an angel fund created in North Carolina in the early 2000s, according to Mark Wdowik, president and CEO of CSU Management Corp. and executive fund director for CSU Fund I. The Inception Micro Angel Fund was associated with the University of North Carolina System and the Small Business and Technology Development Center to spur economic development in the Triad region. The angel fund was started with initial investment of about $2 million by private investors to help spur entrepreneurship in an economically challenged area recovering from losses in the furniture and textile industries. Wdowik served as the executive director of the TTO at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte before joining CSU in 2006. “These days, most venture capitalists won’t put money into investment opportunities unless the company’s making money and has customers in hand, which leaves few investing in bright new ideas at such an early stage in the company’s life cycle,” he says.

Source: Colorado State University

Sung and Ambron quickly realized that PKG would be an excellent target for drug development. Since PKG is specific for biochemical signaling involved with chronic pain, shutting off PKG will not prevent a patient from feeling fresh injuries. It also operates in the peripheral nervous system, rather than the central nervous system, so a drug that blocks PKG does not have to cross the blood-brain barrier. Once they understood the function of PKG, the team began to work with medicinal chemists at Columbia to design a compound that would block PKG from sending signals to the brain. They discovered N60 to be a powerful and selective PKG blocker.

“We found in PKG a well-defined target that has been implicated in several types of pain that are particularly refractory to treatment,” Ambron says. “Now, we have an excellent inhibitor of the target which imparts no evident toxic or behavioral side effects and which also alleviates chronic pain in animal models of nerve injury and inflammation. N60 is non-addictive and non-sedative, and a single dose attenuates pain for at least 24 hours.”

The team has manufactured pharmaceutical-grade compound for studies to evaluate the safety of the drug. “We’ve got the drug, we’re confident in its efficacy, and we are actively looking for investors and experienced partners to help us put this through clinical testing,” says Jerry Kokoshka, a representative from Columbia Technology Ventures, the university’s TTO.

Source:  Columbia Technology Ventures

In another case, the Mayo Clinic is retracting more than a dozen scientific papers published over a period of eight years and withdrawing patent applications because of research misconduct, according to Mayo spokesman Bob Nellis. A researcher who has worked at Mayo for more than ten years has been fired amid allegations that he tampered with another person’s work. The researcher denies the charges, but commercialization efforts related to this work have been abandoned.

Would closer monitoring have picked up on either of these problems at an earlier, less costly stage? Perhaps, but these cases illustrate how difficult it can be to catch on to a rogue researcher or a long-trusted faculty member who may not even consider what he is doing is wrong. However, given the extensive consequences that can result from such problems, technology transfer veterans maintain it is not enough to have clearly enunciated procedures in place to manage funds and referee commercialization activities. You also need to be proactive in communicating these policies to your research community on an ongoing basis. And that’s just for starters.

According to Brian O’Shaughnessy, Esq., an IP specialist at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC in Alexandria, VA, who frequently works with TTOs, “there is a profound potential for abuse, conflicts of interest, and things of that nature that raise a whole host of issues that need to be monitored and investigated.” O’Shaughnessy adds: “It is not just a question of hiring a few licensing professionals and having them go out and peddle technology. They require a lot of support from the standpoint of development of policies institute-wide, implementing those policies, and making sure there is appropriate follow-up and enforcement of those policies.” The entire article and its recommendations for improved monitoring for potentially fraudulent activity appears in the July issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. To begin a subscription and access more than three years of archived issues filled with best practices and success strategies, CLICK HERE.

The “Cradle of Hope” is the brainchild of interior designer Rachelle McClure and magnet lab employee Sean Coyne. As project partners in a graduate furniture design class led by FSU associate professor Jill Pable, PhD, Coyne and McClure studied the conditions in the bedrooms at the HOPE Community transitional shelter. They noted the tight, communal quarters that families shared while participating in job counseling and other services geared to getting them back on their feet. “Based on their observations, Rachelle and Sean designed a cradle atop a unique cantilever base, which can slide underneath a shelter bunk and out of the way,” Pable explains. “The cradle itself is suspended immediately above the parent’s bed, making for a design that occupies very little floor space — a particularly vital consideration in shelter quarters.”

The design positions the cradle immediately next to the parent, so that he or she can easily comfort the baby while both are resting in their respective bunks. Organic, cotton-canvas fabric softens the sides of the stainless steel-framed cradle, while each end is adorned with recycled, translucent resin panels. The materials can be cleaned easily — an essential feature in a shelter with a constant flow of new residents. And because socialization is important, the Cradle of Hope can be detached from the hideaway cantilever base and carried into the shelter’s communal areas. The goal now is to locate a manufacturer that could make the Cradle of Hope a reality for shelters across the country and even the world, Pable says.

Source: Newswise

Like most large research universities and national laboratories, Berkeley Lab has a TTO to help move scientific innovations into the marketplace by filing for patents and negotiating licensing deals. But they don’t always have the time and resources to deliver all the support needed to launch a start-up or to determine if a start-up is even viable. “Unlike other visits from venture capitalists, there’s been a continuity with this program,” says Cheryl Fragiadakis, director of Berkeley Lab’s technology transfer and intellectual property management department. “We’re getting some amount of perspective on our technologies, both in comparison with each other and with what else is out there. He has given us a broader look at the start-up potential of a whole array of technologies in the cleantech space.”

Matheson and his Flagship colleagues have met with close to 100 Berkeley Lab scientists, and they’re now focusing on how to move forward with a small number of them. He’s also held office hours and informal lunch sessions, which Fragiadakis hopes will be the start of a more formal education program. “We’d like to do something to educate our scientific staff on the entrepreneurial world that is a little more structured, more data rich — what’s expected, key elements of success — to make it that much easier to move their technologies out to the private sector,” Fragiadakis says. “Our hope is to go from an average of two start-ups a year to many more a year because of this program.”

Source: Berkeley Lab

The nanofiber consists of a bioresorbable and biocompatible polymer with mechanical, physical, and chemical properties that make it suitable for a wide range of medical applications. The first product the company aims to develop is a pliable, time-release facial mask that features a high-surface contact area. The technology could be applied to extended-wear facial masks, anti-aging stickers, or eye patches. The nature of the nanofibers mesh allows the mask to conform more closely to the skin’s surface and to encapsulate collagen or other skin-enhancing ingredients. Developing nanofibers with time-release properties also could allow the continuous delivery of compounds such as vitamins, sunscreen, or medication directly to the skin at an optimum rate or dosage. The company has identified distribution channels and is completing proof-of-concept testing on the technology.

Source: BioSpectrum

Dealy’s research centers on converting human embryonic stem cells, which have the ability to become any cell type in the body, into cartilage cells. Researchers have tried to engineer replacement cartilage tissue using various techniques, Dealy says, but most are costly and may not provide a long-term fix. Using stem cells to repair damaged cartilage is seen as an ideal method because the cells have an unlimited capacity for self renewal. To use them, however, Dealy and Kosher, a retired UConn Health Center professor, had to develop a technique that replicates the signals and conditions that cause stem cells to differentiate into articular chondrocytes — cells that make up cartilage present at the surface of joints. They’ve done that successfully in a petri dish, and their patented method was recently published in the Journal of Cellular Physiology.

The next step is to determine if the cells can repair damaged cartilage in a living joint. Dealy is in the middle of a proof-of-concept experiment in which she will inject the cells into the joints of mice with osteoarthritis to see if they have a healing affect. In the meantime, Dealy’s work has led to the birth of the bioscience start-up Chondrogenics, Inc., to advance the research and eventually commercialize the technology. Officials caution that a potential treatment is years away and still must overcome many hurdles. “It’s early-stage science, so it’s a highly risky investment because a lot of this kind of research doesn’t pay off,” says Mark Van Allen, president of the UConn R&D Corp., a for-profit organization that creates new business start-ups — including Chondrogenics — based on technologies developed by UConn faculty and staff.

Source: Hartford Business

“Here’s what we can propose,” Mulcahy replied in a follow-up interview with MedCity News. “We will make any of those technologies and potential companies that we pass on immediately available for the state to invest in. They can put some skin in the game in proportion to their tolerance of risk. That way, we don’t lose anything. Either we fund them, or they fund them.” Mulcahy described the concept as a serious proposal. “We’re being criticized for due diligence because we’re trying to protect our investment resources and technologies, and being criticized by people who are not in the position of having to make the decision to put skin in the game,” he said. “If you think we’re doing so badly, we’ll give you the direct opportunity to do it yourself.”

Mulcahy rejected Mahoney’s criticism that the university should move faster as naive and even reckless. “The university owns important technology we can’t afford to jeopardize by making a poor decision,” he said. “That requires a lot of due diligence. If we were irresponsible, we should be taken out and shot. Starting a company is not a zero sum game. It’s a costly venture. We’re holding a very real financial liability that we may never see” a return on investment.

“This discussion is a great start,” Gleason writes on his blog. “We need an open dialogue between the members of the business community and the higher-ups at the U. What Dr. Mulcahy says is very encouraging.” Columnist Thomas Lee then seconded Gleason’s response on his blog at MedCity News. “Can’t we just all get along?” he asked, noting that Mulcahy and Mahoney have been allies on angel investment tax credits, the creation of the Minnesota Science & Technology Authority, and the need for Minnesota to more fully convert its research assets into real technologies. “Normally, you call someone out when things aren’t going so well,” he wrote. “Given Minnesota’s enormous progress on economic development issues, Mahoney’s threat to privatize the school’s Office for Technology Commercialization is akin to a manager firing his team after they just made the playoffs.”

Lee agreed that “the dispute itself reflects real progress. That two fairly important guys would openly argue about something as arcane as technology transfer shows how far we’ve come. Let’s face it folks, until recently, very few people really cared about issues like tech transfer.” Which is why it’s healthy to drag the debate into the public glare of the news media, he added. “We need to openly butt heads — if anything to ensure we’re on the same page, that we set high but reasonable goals for our efforts. So while Tim and Tim probably won’t send each other Christmas cards this year, we can thank them for saying what needs to be said.”

Sources: The Periodic Table and MedCity News

Plus, don’t miss these upcoming distance learning programs:

• Protect Your Patents from Inequitable Conduct Charges — this Thursday, July 22, 2010
• Bullet-Proof Your License Agreements: Prevent Post-License Disputes and Shed Dead-Weight Licensees — Thursday, July 29, 2010
• International Patenting Strategies: Cost-Effectively Expand Your Market and Boost Your TTO’s Revenues — Thursday, August 5, 2010

• UW is a magnet for government- and industry-sponsored research, including $566 million to the College of Medicine alone, in fiscal 2009.
• Directly and indirectly, the university is responsible for $618.1 million in tax revenues, or $1.48 for every $1 invested by taxpayers.
• UW is the third-largest employer in the state, generating 69,800 jobs, including 28,000 directly employed and 9,000 research jobs.
• The Center for Commercialization is one of the nation’s top five university TTOs, with 2,200 issued and pending patents in 2009.

Across the country, the University of Georgia delivered a similar message by touting a $2.2 billion impact on its local economy. A study from UGA’s Selig Center for Economic Growth, which measures the economic impact of all 35 institutions in the University System of Georgia, shows that UGA spent nearly $633 million in salaries and $337 million in operating expenses from July 1, 2008-June 30, 2009, and UGA students spent an additional $436 million in and around Athens.

Despite a weaker economic climate, the university contributed more money to the Athens-area in FY09 than in the previous year, according to Jeffrey M. Humphreys, director of economic forecasting for the Selig Center in UGA’s Terry College of Business. “The recession has had a big impact — particularly on expenditures by the institutions themselves because of cutbacks in state spending for personnel and operating expenses — but it seems like it hasn’t because the numbers keep growing,” he says. “The numbers are bigger this year because of more students and more faculty grants and contracts.” The study showed that for every $1 spent by UGA, $1.51 was added to the regional economy.

But the real economic impact of UGA may be best understood by how it affects employment, Humphreys adds. During the time period studied, UGA created or maintained 19,582 jobs in the area. For each job created on campus, 1.6 off-campus jobs exist because of university-related spending. Taken as a whole, the University System of Georgia contributed more than $12.7 billion into Georgia’s economy and was responsible for 112,336 full- and part-time jobs — 2.8% of all jobs in the state — according to the report.

Sources:  The Seattle Times and Columns

At the Michigan forum, UM President Mary Sue Coleman, PhD, told federal officials about the university’s growing population of student entrepreneurs, citing its TechArb incubator, and said these students play a key role in business development. “We need to get out of the way,” Coleman said. “Give these students a little money and they’ll run with it. We shouldn’t have our blinders on because of what we’ve done in the past.” Locke revealed that Coleman will co-chair the new National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship to help design federal initiatives to push innovation and commercialization at research universities.

Source: Crain’s Detroit Business

In essence, as attorney Scott Alter puts it, “patent-eligibility of technology arguably directed to a pure business method — that is, an improved method of conducting business not requiring use of a computer or other hardware — is suspect, but not necessarily dead in the water.” While some observers feared the Bilski decision would “make statements clearly impacting the patent eligibility of software, Internet and medical diagnostic technologies, that turned out to not be the case,” he adds. The real meaning of the ruling, however, has yet to emerge, experts stress, because the high court largely left specific determinations about the patent eligibility of business methods and processes to the Federal Circuit. Indeed, two cases with opposite outcomes in the Federal Circuit have been remanded to that body for review in light of Bilski.

“The decision has the potential to affect patents on software and diagnostic methods and the like, and from that perspective, technology transfer offices [with] that kind of technology in their portfolios — or that are looking to get into it - should follow the Court’s action carefully,” advises Alter, IP counsel in the Denver office of Faegre and Benson. “Bilski probably doesn’t change things that radically, he says, “because ‘pure’ business method patents were highly suspect prior to the decision, and things were not really made more stringent by it. Indeed, Bilski quite arguably opened things up a bit for business methods because the court said the ‘machine or transformation’ test is not the only test to determine the patent eligibility of processes.”

No matter what happens, TTOs should make sure their understanding of what is patent-eligible aligns with the Federal Circuit’s, Alter emphasizes, regardless of how a particular technology is actually characterized. “Whether something is a ‘business method’ is, in my opinion, typically a matter of semantics,” he says, “and inventions that require no hardware — as well as those requiring significant specific hardware — can arguably be ‘methods of doing business.’ That said, if your invention is just a bunch of steps that are not limited to any kind of hardware or processes, I’d say you can try to claim patent protection by arguing it’s not directed at an abstract idea, but you might well have an uphill battle. I might counsel, ‘Let’s see what else we can add to it. Is it related to hardware? Can you run it on software, thus relating it to hardware? Let’s try to beef that up and try to claim specific machines associated with it — perhaps something more than just a generic processor.’” But, he adds, “if you have a business method that you run on software - especially if there’s specific hardware you’re using in conjunction with it — I’d say, ‘Let’s go for it.’” The complete article, featuring analysis and claim construction strategies from several legal experts, appears in the July issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. For subscription details, CLICK HERE.

Sevick’s system involves micro doses of fluorescent dyes and specially modified near-infrared cameras. With the aid of the light-sensitive cameras, clinicians can observe a fluorescent dye as it works its way through the lymphatic system, indicating valve behavior and flow dynamics. The fluorescent light emission can be seen through the skin by the camera. In contrast to systems that use computed tomography (CT) scanners or positron emission tomography (PET) imagers, the cameras used in Sevick’s system are relatively inexpensive and easy to use. Additionally, the contrast dyes are non-radioactive and can generate images at micro dosing levels, dramatically reducing the potential for side effects.

Baylor College of Medicine and the Texas A&M University System signed an agreement with UTHealth to consolidate the patent portfolio and make it available for commercial development. Sevick was a researcher at Texas A&M and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station when she was granted several of the patents. “This agreement provides a great example of local academic institutions working together to bundle intellectual property around an important, innovative technology to make it more attractive to commercial investment,” says Bruce D. Butler, PhD, vice president for research and technology at UTHealth. “We look forward to working with a commercial partner to get this technology into the clinic.”

Source: Medical News Today

The endometrial cancer molecular markers “will allow us to better define who should be offered additional therapy” and may provide new insights into the role of P13K inhibitor drugs, says Neil Finkler, MD, OvaGene’s CMO. The company believes the cervical cancer assay will help clinicians decide whether a patient will respond to platinum-based treatments used as standard in combination with radiation therapy against stage IB2 to IV disease. “Knowing which cervical cancer patients will not respond to this standard treatment before starting therapy would allow the clinician the opportunity to offer alternative drug therapy up front rather than at time of recurrence,” says Bill Ricketts, PhD, OvaGene’s CSO.

Source: Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

“MicroLEDs have particularly strong potential for evolving life science markets such as neuroscience and for the emerging telecoms market of pico projectors, as well as for printing, microscopy, and next-generation general lighting arrangements,” says Jim Bonar, CEO of mLED. Each microLED provides enough light output to affect other materials, allowing actions such as the active illumination and stimulation of cells. They also have a switching speed fast enough for use in communications and in fluorescence lifetime imaging, according to Bonar.

Source: Science Business

Heat exchange has been a significant issue in many mechanical devices since the Industrial Revolution. “Many electronic devices need to remove a lot of heat quickly, and that’s always been difficult to do,” says Chih-hung Chang, PhD, associate professor in OSU’s School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering. “This combination of a nanostructure on top of a microstructure has the potential for heat transfer that’s much more efficient than anything we’ve had before.”

For water to reach its boiling point of 100 degrees centigrade, for example, the temperature of adjacent plates often must reach about 140 degrees centigrade. With the new approach, water will boil when similar plates are only about 120 degrees centigrade. To accomplish this, heat transfer surfaces are coated with a nanostructured application of zinc oxide, which in this usage develops a multi-textured surface that looks almost like flowers and has extra shapes and capillary forces that encourage bubble formation and rapid, efficient replenishment of active boiling sites. The technology has the potential not only to address cooling problems in advanced electronics but also in conventional heating, cooling, and air conditioning applications, according to the researchers. Military electronic applications that use large amounts of power also are likely.

Source: Nanotechnology Today

The company will incorporate IMMS into its Systems Biology platform, an array of technologies, analytic methods, and applied bioinformatics that it uses to discover and develop new drug targets and disease markers. As part of the license agreement, Beyond Genomics has established a prototype mass spectrometry development center at IU. The organizations also will work together to form commercial relationships to fully develop the potential of IMMS technology. Additional details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Source: PR Newswire

The deal is just one example of the ways that MRC Technology is exploiting its small molecule and therapeutic antibody capabilities, according to Dave Tapolczay, CEO. The organization has another collaboration with AstraZeneca plc to screen 100,000 compounds belonging to AstraZeneca and 50,000 compounds in its own library against targets nominated by AstraZeneca and novel targets arising from research funded by the MRC. MRC Technology also is collaborating with its counterpart TTO at the charity Cancer Research U.K. (See previous article.) “We can collaborate with other technology transfer organizations, on a shared risk basis, to develop small molecule drug discovery programs and targets with therapeutic potential,” Tapolczay says. “When the resulting clinical candidate is subsequently licensed, both parties will not only accomplish their translational research aims but also share in its commercial success going forward.”

Source: Science Business

Technology Transfer Tactics,
Vol. 4, No. 7 (pp 97-112) July 2010

• Bilski decision leaves many questions unanswered for TTOs. Technology transfer offices should continue to maintain a “proceed with caution” approach to pursuing and prosecuting business method patents in light of the Supreme Court’s Bilski decision.
• Hard lesson: Keep close tabs on researchers, funding. It’s easy to get so consumed with licensing and start-up formation that details such as record keeping and monitoring take a back seat. However, seemingly small mistakes in oversight can upend commercialization efforts in a big way.
• In-house counsel: From black hole to deal-making asset. Technology transfer professionals often take a “grin and bear it” approach to their own university counsel’s participation in the tech transfer process, regarding in-house counsel as a drag on potential deal-making rather than a valuable asset.
• Licensee trying to ‘squirm’ off the hook? Educate to close the deal. Every TTO professional probably has a long list of terms that make licensees squirm and balk at deals. The problem is that in-house counsel — often with reason — insist on terms that licensees don’t typically come across in private industry.
• Key excerpts from Supreme Court decision in re Bilski. For a ruling that critics say left more unsaid than said, the Bilski verbiage contains some surprisingly strong statements.
  
• Ohio State revamps TTO and seeks dramatic increase in revenues. A major revamp of the TTO is one of several key moves Ohio State University is counting on to significantly brighten its licensing revenue picture.
  
• Negotiation expert shares tips on how to strike a better deal. Perhaps the greatest challenge in negotiating a deal is getting to the number you really want.

In what the authors say is the largest study of its kind, experts on entrepreneurship surveyed 11,572 professors at institutions across the United States. Of the 1,948 respondents who had started a business, only 682, or about one-third, were exploiting patents obtained through formal university IP systems. The remaining 1,266 respondents had started businesses — including consulting, manufacturing, and service-based firms — based on non-patentable knowledge. Social scientists and engineers launched most of the businesses that were not based on patented inventions, but such ventures also were prevalent among biomedical and physical scientists. “There is a lot of stuff that academics are realizing isn’t patentable but they can commercialize for themselves by starting a company,” says Scott Shane, PhD, professor of entrepreneurial studies in the department of economics at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western, who co-authored the study.

Because surveys of entrepreneurial activity, including government assessments, typically focus on patent activity, they may significantly underestimate the efforts of academics, Shane adds. That conclusion supports the findings of another study recently published in Research Policy that suggests commercialization statistics based on TTO data often underestimate the impact of university research. (Click here for previous story.) The new study also suggests that university TTOs fail to help a sizable proportion of academic entrepreneurs. “All the policies and approaches focus on the formal intellectual property system, which means we are missing a big part of the iceberg that is under the water,” Shane says.

Source:  Nature News

1. Management failure (22 mentions). Start-ups are doomed when academics seek to be corporate managers and stay in control too long; management teams lack start-up experience; management fails to accurately project the company’s needs for capital, employees, product development, and technical expertise; or management fails to identify the market opportunity and, therefore, misses it.

2. Failure to raise sufficient capital (15 mentions). Some academic start-ups begin with no capital (”zero stage minus one”) and cannot overcome this deficit, according to respondents. Others don’t secure follow-on investment rounds because they fail to resolve technical challenges or reach major business plan milestones, encounter a cash flow crisis before they have a chance to succeed, or lose their original VCs to other projects.

3. Innovation does not meet a commercial need (12 mentions). Many start-ups succumb to problems such as “laboratory-push versus market-pull,” the entry of a technology into the marketplace too early or late, a “$5 solution for a 25 cent problem,” the inability of an innovation to compete with existing products, or the threat of “neat science” — when a start-up falls in love with its technology and fails to identify a market need.

4. Geography (7 mentions). “Small country start-ups must be successful in their home country before they can think about going international,” according to one respondent. “This is especially difficult when there are no buyers in their home country.” VCs also want their portfolio companies nearby, which may limit investment opportunities to in-country VCs. In other cases, companies run out of cash because the local market — consumers, capital, and suppliers — is too small to sustain.

5. Cultural factors (6 mentions). Start-ups stagnate when the country’s culture devalues risk-taking because there are “no young people with entrepreneurial spirit, no risk money supply, no vibrant IPO market, and no market willing to buy state-of-the-art technological goods,” according to one respondent. “In Europe, despite all the EU propaganda of a ‘single market,’ the reality is that linguistic barriers, geographical trading cultures, and other country-defined factors place severe limitations on the ability of any company to grow beyond the level of a 50-employee company.” In many countries, a company’s failure can damage the reputations of a researcher, university, and company managers, according to another respondent, although in the U.S., such failure “is a ‘badge of honor’” that has little negative impact on the principals.

6. Government laws, bureaucracy, and programs (6 mentions). Start-ups often are handicapped by poor IP protection through national laws, such as constraints on protection of computer software and biotechnology in Europe. In other cases, “government funding programs, such as the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR), actually have a detrimental effect by causing start-ups to be logical extensions of technology-development, not market-pulled technology needs.” Legislated entrepreneurship rarely works, as government does not understand the technology commercialization process, one respondent adds.

7. Infighting within the start-up team (6 mentions). Start-ups cannot survive without a common objective among key players: inventor, university, management, investors, and government, according to one respondent. The survey also cites the failure of a university and/or investor to give control of a spinoff to the management team and the “clash of cultures” that occurs when start-ups focus solely on technology while investors focus solely on money.

8. Problems with IP (6 mentions). In general, technology needs a clean patent estate to allow a start-up to operate freely, according to participants. “The IPR estate is too weak without issued patents,” one respondent notes. “This is a significant challenge as universities cannot afford the expense to ‘prosecute to completion’ internationally, but investors do not want to invest without allowed claims and start-up companies cannot wait that long without investment. It is a ‘lose-lose-lose’ situation.” In many countries, lack of clarity about IPR ownership also impedes investment.

9. Poor business plan (5 mentions). A business plan that ignores critical first steps to survival precludes start-ups from raising capital. “A business plan may have a misdirected focus upon the technology and the IPR, without seeing the market,” according to one respondent. “Too many start-ups fail to consider the competition in their business plans, especially competition from market leaders, even when the competition’s product is not as good,” another adds.

10. Unrealistic expectations (4 mentions). “The probability of having a blockbuster invention is so low that the chance that any start-up company in America — much less in smaller countries of the world — will be significant is very remote,” one respondent says. “The failure rate is too high to warrant a significant number of investments.”

Source: Beyond the First World

1. TTOs: Use Social Media Effectively to Market Your Innovations
2. The Perfect Elevator Pitch: Sell Your IP in 3 Minutes or Less!
3. Tech Transfer Marketing on a Shoestring: Guerilla Tactics in a Budget-cut World
4. Performing Market Research Studies: Testing the Waters to De-Risk Your IP Investments
5. Best Practices for Marketing University and Federal Lab Technologies
6. Shifting Your TTO from Market Push to Market Pull: Finding the White Space
7. Selling University IP in Cyberspace: Best Practices in Web-based Marketing
8. Great Ideas for Improving Faculty Outreach and Enhancing Researcher-TTO Relations
9. Marketing Your Innovations: Best Practices for Tech Transfer Professionals
10. Shrink Wrap Your University’s Technologies for Industry
11. Become Industry-Friendly: Transform Your TTO into a Licensee Magnet

For complete details on all programs and to order, CLICK HERE.

The move is a “two-way skills transplant” between organizations with expertise in different areas of medical research, according to Keith Blundy, CEO of Cancer Research Technology. While CRT has expertise in forming global networks with industry partners to turn cancer discoveries into treatments, the arrangement with MRC will allow it to hand over discoveries to tech transfer leaders in disease areas beyond cancer. “Both organizations can contribute their skills and knowledge to bring the maximum patient benefit across a range of diseases as efficiently and quickly as possible,” Blundy says. Both CRT and MRCT will share revenue resulting from the arrangement on a case-by-case basis.

Source:  Science Business

The university, whose research budget topped $1 billion last year, generated eight start-ups and signed 78 licensing deals in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009. One of the company’s latest start-ups, Ann Arbor-based microprocessor firm Ambiq Micro, recently won a $250,000 business plan competition run by Cisco Systems and VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Locally based U-M start-ups include established firms like HealthMedia, which was acquired in 2008 by Johnson & Johnson, and HandyLab, which was acquired by Becton, Dickinson and Co. in 2009.

Several initiatives launched within the last few years have broadened the university’s focus on boosting the local economy. U-M plans to use the 174-acre North Campus Research Complex — the ex-Pfizer campus acquired in 2009 — in part to give its professors incubator space for new companies. The university also plans to conduct multidisciplinary research at the site in hopes of achieving major technological advances. In addition, last year the TTO created the Michigan Venture Center to provide resources for faculty members weighing whether to pursue a start-up company. The TTO also runs a mentor-in-residence program offering on-the-job training for entrepreneurs and a “gap capital” program to deliver small-scale funding to professors.

Source: AnnArbor.com

Fast pyrolysis quickly heats biomass, such as corn stalks and leaves, in the absence of oxygen to produce a liquid product known as bio-oil that can be used to manufacture fuels and chemicals and a solid product called biochar. The biochar can be used to enrich soil and remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Brown — also director of Iowa State’s Bioeconomy Institute — had worked with the students to develop three types of fast pyrolysis reactors. The researchers also worked together to invent a pyrolysis technology that improves, collects, and separates bio-oil into various liquid fractions. A patent has been filed for the technology.

The separation technology is a big step because bio-oil is a complex mixture of chemicals and compounds that is difficult to process, Brown says. Bio-oil is much easier to process if it’s separated into various fractions that are analogous to the “heavy ends” and “light ends” in petroleum refining, he adds. That separation is what the new company is all about. Avello, in fact, is a Latin verb meaning “to separate.” The company plans to use the separation technology to produce bio-oils that can replace petroleum-based materials in asphalt, can be processed into various renewable chemicals, and can be used as renewable industrial fuels. Avello has licenses from the Iowa State University Research Foundation, Inc., granting it exclusive rights to use the bio-oil separation technology and a bio-asphalt developed by Christopher Williams, PhD, Iowa State associate professor of civil, construction, and environmental engineering.

Source:  Newswise

“A significant potential advantage of the EpiAccess system is its ability to help electrophysiologists navigate the tip of the access needle safely onto the outside wall of the heart, thus providing a ready pathway for the instrumentation, such as a catheter or pacing lead, needed to treat arrhythmias,” Gillies explains. Enabling this access are the system’s onboard retractable needle and a sensor capable of measuring the pressure-frequency signals of target tissues. A software algorithm analyzes the pressure-frequency data to help clinicians safely move the needle to the correct site. The system requires only a 3mm incision, making it much less invasive than standard surgical methods.

“Any time you reduce the risks of a procedure, as we have done with this system, you in principle make treatment available to more people,” Mahapatra says. Ultimately, the researchers hope to apply the technology to patients suffering from cardiac arrhythmias, such as atrial fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia, without making a hole in the right ventricle, which occurs in up to one-third of existing surgical procedures. The system might also one day be used for safer pacemaker lead insertion, for stem cell and drug delivery, and for reducing the risk of stroke associated with endocardial procedures.

Source: UVa Today

fDOT systems help researchers to quantify cancer activity and evaluate treatment efficiency. They provide quantitative functional measurements for the pharmacological industry in experiments on small animals — typically mice. After target-specific fluorescent molecular probes are injected into the mice, the probes’ distribution in the tissue is reconstructed, enabling both 3D localization of the targeted areas and quantization of the local concentration of the fluorescent dye. However, existing fDOT systems are limited by the extent of tissue heterogeneity and the complex surface shape of the animals. CEA-Leti’s fDOT imaging system enables reconstruction of the fluorescence yield even in heterogeneous and highly attenuating body regions, such as the lungs, and doesn’t require immersing the mice in optical index-matching liquid. After being injected with a cancer-specific fluorescent marker, the mice are scanned with near-infrared light over the area of interest. The system records outgoing transmitted and emitted fluorescent lights and reconstructs the 3D fluorescence map to infer cancer localization and activity. For in vivo experiments on small animals, the reconstruction method takes into account heterogeneous optical properties of the biological tissues and complex-shape-object geometries. Research teams have validated CEA-Leti’s fDOT systems in studies on more than 1,000 mice.

Source:  Financial Post

Even under the most carefully crafted agreement, you’ll occasionally be saddled with a licensee who just doesn’t play by the rules, experiences a business downturn that stalls its plans to commercialize your IP, or simply does not meet its obligations for reporting, payment, or product development. In some case, swift action must be taken to either compel compliance or shed these “dead weight” licensees. That’s why our Distance Learning Division has recruited a team of IP licensing experts to break down the drafting, reporting and auditing process to help you first draft airtight agreements and then successfully manage your licensees — or know when to cut them loose. Join Dan Burns of Daniel Burns and Associates and Angela Hodge from the University of Texas at Austin for a supremely practical 90-minute audioconference: Bullet-Proof Your License Agreements: Prevent Post-License Disputes and Shed Dead-Weight Licensees, to be held Thursday, July 29, 2010. This interactive workshop will be jam-packed with best practices for drafting rock-solid agreements, maintaining top-notch compliance and audit programs, and dealing effectively with problematic licensees. For complete details and to register, CLICK HERE.

Also coming soon:

• Protect Your Patents from Inequitable Conduct Charges — next Thursday, July 22, 2010
• International Patenting Strategies: Cost-Effectively Expand Your Market and Boost Your TTO’s Revenues — Thursday, August 5, 2010

Autoimmune diseases comprise more than 100 chronic and often disabling illnesses affecting up to 100 million people worldwide, adds David Norris, MD, co-discoverer of the TCISM targets and chair of the department of dermatology at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus. “While there are blockbuster therapies that treat these diseases, they work in only a portion of patients and often lack long-term efficacy,” Norris says. “Additionally, because they block the patient’s entire immune system, these drugs leave the body vulnerable to infections and even malignancies. TCISM-based therapies could potentially provide physicians and patients improved options for the treatment of many inflammatory diseases.”

WSBI is advancing its lead molecule — WSBI-711, an antibody against two TCISM targets — into mid-stage preclinical testing. WSBI’s other TCISM antibody and orally active small molecule therapeutic programs also are progressing toward preclinical development.

Source: PharmaLive

Instead of measuring a person’s emotional reaction to a lie, the eye-tracking technology developed by John Kircher, PhD, U-Utah professor of psychology, David Raskin, PhD, professor emeritus, and colleagues measures the individual’s cognitive reaction. To do so, the researchers record a number of measurements while a subject is answering a series of true-false questions on a computer. The measurements include pupil dilation, response time, reading and re-reading time, and error rate. Lying requires more work than telling the truth, according to the researchers, so they look for indications that subjects are working harder than expected. For example, a person who is lying may have dilated pupils and take longer to read and answer questions. However, these reactions often are minute and require sophisticated measurement and statistical modeling to determine their significance. The Utah researchers say they are the first to develop and assess the software and methods to apply these tests effectively.

Using eye-tracking technology to detect lies has several benefits over the polygraph, the developers maintain. Eye-tracking technology promises to cost substantially less, require one-fifth of the time needed for polygraph examinations, require no wire attachments, be available in any language, and be suitable for administration by technicians rather than qualified polygraph examiners. The researchers are continuing their development work and hope the licensing will help them to attract interest from potential customers, including the U.S. Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and Energy.

Source: EurekAlert!

Under the law, an eligible business could apply for the TDPC for its 2009 and/or 2010 qualified investments associated with qualifying projects that are designed to treat or prevent diseases and conditions. Eligible organizations could elect to forgo their allocated TDPC for a grant. Small businesses that are organized as S corporations, LLCs, or any other pass-through partnership or entity organization are not eligible for grants under this legislation if any of the following tax-exempt entities hold an equity or profits interest in the business:

1. any federal, state, or local government, or any political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof,
2. nonprofit organizations under section 501(c),
3. qualified issuers of certain tax-exempt bonds, or
4. any partnership or other pass-through entity where a partner that holds an equity or profits interest is one of the tax-exempt entities identified in 1 through 3 above.

“It is important for companies to focus on their justification for the tax credit based on ‘unmet need’ and the impact it will have to society,” says Christy Schafer, PhD, CEO of Inspire Pharmaceuticals and member of the Emerging Company Section of the board of directors at BIO. Lance Hardin, CPA, senior tax manager at Hughes Pittman & Gupton, advises companies to include budgeting projections and economic impact statistics, submit separate applications for each project to be considered, document the proper number of employees, and create detailed project descriptions that describe how the company qualifies and why the project will succeed. Additionally, Hardin advises applicants to use the specified format, demonstrate your differences from the competition, and cater to the government audience.

Turnaround timeline is short. Eligible companies must apply to the IRS for qualification certification for the program by July 21. Applications for certification can be found by clicking here.

Sources: AUTM and TechJournal South

The company would have the right to pursue commercial development of any matches found to be promising. If it chose not to continue, MRC Technology could support continued work, finding other partners or arranging spinoffs. AstraZeneca also will gain a broader and deeper understanding of science conducted by its academic partners much earlier — in some cases before initial findings are published and made public.

The alliance marks a shift in efforts by the company to strengthen its capacity to discover and commercialize products, with a goal of reinvigorating its pipeline as existing drugs come off patent. The move comes at a time when a growing number of pharmaceutical companies are sharing more information and experimenting with partnerships with external researchers as they struggle to boost lagging rates of innovation. Initially, AstraZeneca has agreed to screen the combined libraries of compounds to see whether they could be useful in treating cancer, infection, and cardiovascular or neuroscience diseases. MRC Technology will choose five additional targets to explore.

Source: Financial Times

In a rebuttal to both the widely read Businessweek opinion piece by Robert E. Litan, vice president of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Businessweek response by Arundeep S. Pradhan of the Association of University Technology Managers, University City Science Center President and CEO Stephen Tang calls for an end to the bickering. Instead, Tang points to the Science Center’s early-stage proof-of-concept funding program as a solution. The program — called QED, from the Latin phrase quod erat demonstrandum, or “proven as demonstrated”– provides funding, advice, and guidance to researchers hoping to make the commercial jump and helps to bridge the divide popularly known as the “Valley of Death.”

Since QED launched last April, the center has funded six projects, including a low-cost, radiation-free breast cancer screening device developed at Drexel University and a minimally invasive technique for replacing heart valves from a research team at the University of Pennsylvania, along with a handful of other ideas and technologies. The Science Center is accepting applications for its third round of QED funding. But more pressing, perhaps, is the chance to help improve tech transfer results by replicating QED elsewhere, according to Tang.

Source: The Philly Post