They're on your computer. They're in your car. They're in the drugstores. They're even in your refrigerator.
From Gatorade to Google, many of the products and processes you use every day were created by university researchers. Yet little attention is typically given to their scholarly origins and how they arrived in your home or office. Chances are a relatively little-known process called technology transfer played a major role in bringing them to you and millions of others worldwide.
So what is technology transfer and how does it work?
"Simply put, technology transfer is the process of bringing discoveries to life," says Paul Ferguson, vice president for research and graduate studies at UNLV. He is guiding the expansion of the university's technology transfer program, which involves the transfer of results or products of faculty research to private industry for commercial development.
Major research universities have employed the practice for decades with well-documented results. Perhaps the bestknown case is the University of Florida's commercialization of Gatorade, the sports drink developed in 1965 for Gator football players by a professor in the university's College of Medicine; a recent Wall Street Journal article reports that the university has earned more than $94 million over three decades from licensing the drink's formula and trademark.
Other universities across the country are benefiting from tech transfer as well. From 1996-2001, the University of California system reported $632 million of income from technology transfer royalties and fees. Each year, the total royalties and other invention-related profits for all U.S. universities combined exceed a billion dollars, according to the Association of University Technology Managers.
"Technology transfer has achieved a variety of beneficial outcomes for universities, not the least of which is the generation of revenue for research," Ferguson says. "It also encourages economic development, builds successful public/private partnerships, and protects the intellectual property of faculty. It is truly a win-win' situation."
Understanding the Process
The process of technology transfer is relatively simple. Say a faculty member's research leads to an idea that could be further developed for commercial use. Often, the innovation is a product, but it may also be less concrete, such as a process for creating a new drug or a faster method for producing a widget.
Whatever the form, the first step toward protecting a truly novel and useful idea the intellectual property is to file a patent with the long-term goal of taking the innovation to the marketplace.
Without patent protection, unscrupulous entrepreneurs can capitalize on the idea themselves or use it in a way that the researcher does not endorse. "Filing a patent application protects the intellectual property for both the researcher and the university," says Ferguson.
However, faculty members often are not equipped with the resources to pursue a patent which can cost upwards of $40,000 for U.S. protection only. Nor do they generally have the resources to bring their ideas to market on their own.
"The technology transfer office seeks to help the faculty member file a patent an often complex, costly process to protect the intellectual property," Ferguson says. "Then, finding a private industry partner interested in licensing and marketing the invention, process, or product can be the next phase."
If a project shows promise for commercialization, Ferguson says, UNLV's Research Foundation would assist in promoting it in the business development stage, working with a private industry partner to bring the discovery to the marketplace.
UNLV chemistry professor Stephen Carper is one faculty member already tapping the technology transfer expertise offered by the university; two patent applications have been filed on his behalf.
"I value the insights I've gained from the experts on this process," says Carper. "I may not have pursued the patent at all, given the cost. I don't know many faculty who have tens of thousands of dollars in disposable income available for a patent."
Faculty inventors receive 60 percent of royalties derived from their patents; the administrative unit to which the faculty member belongs receives 25 percent and the research function at the university receives 15 percent.
That 60 percent cut for the researcher, Carper says, is generous. "Besides, the university has supplied the funds and infrastructure that make my research possible. It's only appropriate that it has first right of refusal on the rights to any commercialization potential and that it receives a portion of royalties from an invention."
What Technology Transfer Means for UNLV
The great strides UNLV has made in becoming a major research institution in the last decade positioned the university's technology transfer operation to move into full swing in 2004.
"An institution must reach a certain point of maturity for the technology transfer function to become cost-effective," Ferguson says, explaining that a university's research endeavor must be adequately sophisticated to produce enough potentially patentable projects to justify a fully operational tech transfer unit.
Currently, the university has about 20 such projects under evaluation by Ken Sherman, UNLV's new director of technology transfer; additionally, several patents have been awarded to UNLV researchers, and several more patent applications have been filed.
Sherman is a veteran product developer and entrepreneur with more than 30 years of experience in the private sector. His first priority at UNLV is to mine prospective patentable projects from the university's research community and then evaluate their potential. He considers several criteria when evaluating projects, including economic and legal viability, as well as usefulness to society. Sometimes, he says, a faculty member may not even be aware that a project has commercial potential.
"There is vast technology transfer potential in the research being conducted at UNLV," Sherman says. "We are really just beginning to tap into it."
Ferguson is likewise enthusiastic about the new technology transfer endeavor.
"We're very pleased with our early successes and expect more now that we've created the infrastructure to support the technology transfer concept," Ferguson says. "It is testament to the maturity of the research enterprise at UNLV."
