Are you a “knowledgeable seller?” The tech transfer team at Michigan State University (MSU) is working hard to become just that, as they seek to repeat the “home runs” the university achieved in anti-cancer compounds in the late ‘70s and ‘80s — before it even had a formal tech transfer office. Since then, MSU has been relatively quiet in terms of commercializing its IP — that is, until the fall of 2007 when it made a major commitment to proactively market its inventions. “There was a re-evaluation of how we wanted to approach tech transfer, and over the last couple of years [the administration has] made an additional commitment to providing more resources to do two things: Hire a lot more staff, and really emphasize the assessment of our commercial potential as a means of being more effective at marketing,” says Michael R. Poterala, executive director of MSU Technologies. The TTO staff, which comprised three full-time people in 1998, is on target to have 20 full-time employees once the hiring is complete, says Poterala. The marketing challenge has also been addressed with the hiring out an outside consulting firm called The Tokars Group. Poterala says that having the external consultants as a resource “gives us a breadth and depth we could never maintain with our staff, and has enabled us to become more knowledgeable sellers.” Just what does that mean? “The way we’ve heard someone describe it at our sessions with Tokars is like this: If you have made a new drill, you have to realize that what you’re really selling is a better hole,” Poterala explains. “We try to focus on what the potential commercial applications are, and not just how the invention advances technology and science. We want to understand at an early stage how it can be commercialized, or what its applications or value are so we can find the right opportunities to transfer it out to the right parties.” A detailed article on the MSU approach appears in the January issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

Posted January 13th, 2009 under Intellectual Property Marketing

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