Fall 2001
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Research universities are hotbeds of new ideas, some of which will eventually make their way into the private sector in the form of products or spin-off companies. Organized technology transfer efforts at the University of Oregon are less than a decade old, but the work already is producing significant and rapidly growing results (see graph).
"Revenue from royalties and license fees hit a record high at the UO in fiscal year 2001, the sixth consecutive record-setting year for our technology licensing program," says Don Gerhart, director of the UO Office of Technology Transfer.
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| UO Technology transfer activities yielding results. This graph shows the steadily increasing level of income generated through licensing of UO innovations and discoveries. |
How does a technology transfer office help capitalize on the university's intellectual capital? Gerhart and his staff work to guide university inventions through the transition from campus to the commercial marketplace. Each invention is unique and requires its own special handling. In the case of research that has led to the creation of new discoveries with strong but as yet unproven commercial potential, the office may bring in support from corporate partners while the technology is still being developed. This additional support allows the university to continue its ongoing basic research projects while simultaneously helping potential commercial applications transition successfully into the private sector. In other situations, such as those where the potential commercial value is immediately clear, the Office of Technology Transfer moves aggressively to license the invention to an existing company or to a spin-off company for further product development. When the situation calls for it, the UO tech transfer staff steers the invention through the paperwork process required to obtain patent protection.
"An important point to remember is that patents are a means to an end, and not an end in themselves," says Gerhart. "We seek patents when they are necessary to secure corporate investment in commercial development of an Oregon invention."
Approximately 80 percent of the roughly $550,000 the UO took in this year in tech transfer revenue came from licensing of biotech and bioscience-related products. These products are primarily chemicals, monoclonal antibodies, genes, and software used for pharmaceutical or biomedical purposes. And importantly, the bulk of this technology-generated revenue comes from Oregon companies.
"In other words, the economic achievements of Oregon biotech and bioscience companies were a major factor in UO's record-setting level of licensing revenue," Gerhart says. "I see a direct benefit for the state in that our tech transfer activity is maturing and resulting in tighter linkages between university innovation and the growth of Oregon's knowledge-based economy, including our state's relatively young, but rapidly developing, biotechnology and bioscience industries."
Of course, not all technologies transferred from the UO are in these areas. Other UO inventions span a variety of other fields, ranging from nanotechnology to agriculture to databases for cataloguing art collections. Spin-off companies developed with assistance from the Office of Technology Transfer have entered a number of different fields, including telecommunications, edu-business, and artificial intelligence.
"The benefits of tech transfer to the state are enormous," Gerhart says. "Oregon citizens are prime beneficiaries because the benefits come in one way or another to them: existing businesses get new business, spin-offs take flight, the UO research enterprise becomes better-supported, graduate students have better opportunities for education and employment, and the state receives additional tax revenue on the economic activity. It's definitely a win-win situation."