Focusing on marketing IP — as opposed to managing it — is the key to maximizing commercialization opportunities, says Mark E. Coticchia, vice president of Case Western Reserve University’s Office of Research and Technology Management. If you look at his track record it’s hard to argue with his strategy; the office set a record for new licensing revenues during the fiscal year ended June 30 — $16.3 million. That smashed the previous record of $13.2 million set the previous year. Coticchia joined Case Western in 2001 after a stint with an early-stage venture fund, and proceeded to expand and re-organize the office, while enhancing its profile in the community. It is his diverse background, he says, that led him to adopt this approach, which he calls the early-stage venture model. “I’ve spent half my time in industry; I held a position as a senior marketing engineer, started the TTO at Carnegie Mellon in the early ‘90s, and then joined the venture capital firm,” he explains. “Basically, my recipe consists of people, process, and policies.”

Coticchia says the type of people he has hired for his TTO has been the key to the department’s success. Employing the early-stage venture model, he looks for the same kinds of individuals that VCs hire. “They have business experience, sales and marketing experience, science and technology experience, with engineering degrees or MBAs,” he notes, “They have the great interpersonal skills needed to deal with captains of industry and great researchers.” In short, he says, “they understand how the game is played; we then surround them with processes and policies that allow them to get things done.” In the early-stage venture model, he continues, the TTO is not set up like a corporation, where different individuals have specific functions — i.e., marketing, IT, or contracting. “Our people are case managers that can handle everything from cradle to grave,” he says. “If an invention disclosure comes in, they handle it all the way to final disposition. The case managers decide whether to pass on a technology, proceed with additional R&D, seek to license it, or develop a start-up around it — “including the people, technology, and capital needed to get it to the marketplace,” Coticchia says. “It could even entail them getting a board seat or performing the function of its first CEO.”

Coticchia concedes he has to pay a premium to attract such people, but adds that “we are not way out of line with the salaries these people [in other TTOs] command. If you look at AUTM or LES surveys, I would say we’re between 10% and 20% higher than some of those ranges cited.”

Basically, he explains, “we are all kind of like partners, and peers.” The general approach they all take, he notes, illustrates the “marketing vs. managing” approach. “In managing IP, the final result is IP protection,” Coticchia observes. “With a marketing approach, I might not have any protection but I may create a business, or license the technology without any IP protection whatsoever. In the model we execute, if you take a look at triage — technical merit, commercial merit, protection — we put much more emphasis on commercial merit. If there is not a marketplace, we will not pursue protection.” A detailed article on Case Western’s strategy appears in the September 2009 issue of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor. For subscription information, CLICK HERE.

Posted September 1st, 2009 under Intellectual Property Marketing

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