Stop the IP Leakage in Your University
Originally presented October 27, 2010

According to recent estimates, almost 30% of your university inventions are being commercialized through the “back door” — without the involvement of the IP commercialization office. That can represent millions of dollars in royalties that are lost and will never be recouped - affecting your TTO, your institution’s future research budget, faculty and industry relations, and more.

Furthermore, these inventions — “rogue IP” if you will — can damage the integrity of your university, cause internal friction, and tie your office up in distasteful, costly legal action. That’s why Technology Transfer Tactics has created this practical, how-to distance learning program:

Stop the IP Leakage in Your University

With this nuts-and-bolts session, you’ll walk away with a detailed blueprint and proven strategies for plugging the IP leaks in your university. Here’s what our expert faculty will cover:

• A detailed description of what IP leakage is and how it occurs
• Tips for identifying and fixing weak spots in your policies and procedures that can lead to IP leakage
• Faculty education and outreach strategies that keep IP from escaping
• Detecting leakage among former faculty and graduates
• Best practices for reigning in rogue IP and lost royalties
• An inside view of the legal implications  surrounding IP leakage that can affect your university, your faculty inventors, and your TTO
• Case scenarios of IP leakage and how they were handled successfully

Your Expert Panel of Presenters

Jim Heitner, MBA, CEO and Co-founder, Rogue IP, Inc.
Jim has over 10 years of success in technology commercialization and venture development.  Jim’s diverse skills and experiences include seed capital investing with Georgia Venture Partners, and technology licensing and intellectual property management at Emory University, Cornell University, Paradigm Genetics, Inc., and the University of Georgia.  He holds a BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Georgia and an MBA from Emory University. Based on a need identified during his IP management career, Jim launched Rogue IP to help universities and other IP owners detect and stop costly IP leakage in their organizations. (www.rogueip.com)

Kannan Grant serves as interim director of the University of Alabama-Huntsville’s Small Business Development Center/Procurement Technical Assistance Center, director of the Office of Technology Commercialization, and executive director of ICE Lab. He works in a variety of ways to enable inventors and businesspeople to take UA-Huntsville technologies from conception to the marketplace. In addition to working with UA-Huntsville start-ups that are competing in Alabama Launchpad, he began the Chargers Entrepreneurs Forum, which offers webinars and seminars of interest to entrepreneurs on topics ranging from intellectual property protection to business plan writing. Kannan also speaks to classes and other groups on entrepreneurship and intellectual property. Mr. Grant has more than fifteen years of experience in technology transfer. Prior to joining UA-Huntsville, he served as the CEO of FuturaGene Inc., where he was instrumental in establishing the company’s first subsidiary in Beijing, China. He was also responsible for spearheading FuturaGene’s foray in the biofuels arena. Prior to FuturaGene Inc., he served as associate vice chancellor for the Office of Technology Development at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he was instrumental in negotiating and signing two of the largest license agreements in the school’s history.