At universities and research centers worldwide, increasing emphasis is being placed on developing technology transfer. IPBlog receives recruiting ads daily, and, unfortunately, technology transfer is often promoted in the mistaken belief that it will lead to substantial additional income for an institution. While it is important to appreciate and protect the value of intellectual property originating from ideas and efforts of an institution’s researchers and to facilitate the transfer of research results, generating income should not be the primary objective of the transfer of technology.
As discussed in Intellectual Property Management in Health and Agricultural Innovation, the job of the Technology Transfer Officer is to create the incentives needed to move discovery into the product development arena, motivating academic researchers not by the sole promise of high profits—which rarely appear (AUTM’s statistics indicate one in 200 licenses reaches the $1M in revenue mark) —but by applying royalty benefit streams towards further research in the inventor’s laboratory, and by balancing some financial reward to the inventor with the satisfaction of seeing his or her work used for public benefit. (Mike Moberly refers to that relationship-building process as “onboarding,” and IPBlog and BVR will be exploring that in detail at a later date.)
To read the full, original article click on this link: Two foundational information tools support worldwide technology transfer | BVR's Intellectual Property Blog
