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Overcoming Challenges In Transferring Technology In Academia and Beyond

By Randi Isaacs, Stacy Fredrich and Alyssa Walker
October 02, 2015

University technology transfer offices (TTOs) bridge the gap between innovation and commercialization by identifying ways to protect university-generated innovations from unauthorized exploitation, by obtaining the appropriate protection for such innovations, and by facilitating commercialization of these innovations. Of course, the process of protecting and commercializing intellectual property (IP) is not exclusive to universities. For-profit companies worldwide engage in a similar process; however, universities (as well as start-up and other pre-revenue companies) face unique challenges in these efforts. Six such challenges are identified herein, along with best practices for overcoming those challenges.

Non-Disclosure vs. Operation Of University Research Program

A TTO often acts as the sole advocate of non-disclosure and secrecy within a community in which disclosure and transparency are highly valued. On one hand, non-disclosure is critical to the ability to protect an innovation by patent or trade secret. On the other hand, prolific publication is directly correlated obtaining to grant funding for research, receiving tenure at a university, and improving standing in the researcher's field of study. Consequently, university researchers are often impatient to disseminate their work to interested colleagues and the scientific community and may not ensure that the underlying IP in their research findings is properly protected before disclosure.

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