The following is a list of the articles that appear in the February 2010 of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor monthly newsletter. If you are already a current subscriber click here to log in and access your issue. Not a subscriber already? Subscribe now and get access to this issue as well as all of our back issues online! Plus you will receive a free subscription to IP Marketing eNews, the weekly online companion to Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor, and a free two-week posting on the popular Job Listings section of our website.

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 3, No. 2 (pp 13-24) February 2010

• UT uses outside firm to counsel its start-up inventors. One of the most effective strategies in selecting an outside consulting firm is to study what they’ve done for similar organizations, and the University of Tennessee Research Foundation only had to look a few miles down the road to Oak Ridge to confirm its decision to retain the Center for Entrepreneurial Growth to counsel its faculty members on start-up formation.
• Hopkins schools its faculty in marketing their inventions. An alliance of Johns Hopkins collaborators, supporters, and staff is seeking to give its faculty inventors a leg up in the marketplace with a training program on creating effective marketing pitches to attract potential investors.
• UC Merced touts inventions, inventors with new catalog. The Office of Technology Transfer at the University of California, Merced is seeking to reach a variety of internal and external audiences through a new publication called “Inventions of the Research Enterprise.”
• Competition includes student crash course in IP marketing. While the numerous student innovation competitions held around the world all have their distinct styles and structures, most involve the students arriving at the competition with their presentations already in hand. At the annual Biotechnology YES competition, however, the approach is quite different: The students spend several days learning about marketing from industry experts before they make their presentations.
• Blog helps consultant promote clients’ IP, market its expertise. While many TTOs are still getting their feet wet in the world of blogging, IP and technology management services firm Fuentek, LLC, has developed a sophisticated blog that’s enabling it to both market clients’ technologies and enhance its own reputation for IP marketing and management expertise.
• Puerto Rico embarks on two-fold strategy for marketing IP. One of Puerto Rico’s leading advocates for the promotion of its university research candidly admits that the island’s university system has had two significant weaknesses that have kept it from achieving the success that the quality of its research merits.

Posted February 25th, 2010 under Current Issue. [ Comments: none ]

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the January 2010 of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor monthly newsletter. If you are already a current subscriber click here to log in and access your issue. Not a subscriber already? Subscribe now and get access to this issue as well as all of our back issues online! Plus you will receive a free subscription to IP Marketing eNews, the weekly online companion to Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor, and a free two-week posting on the popular Job Listings section of our website.

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 3, No. 1 (pp 112) January 2010

• Business exec turned TTO leader brings bottom-line orientation — and gets results. Jay Schrankler, executive director of the Office for Technology Commercialization at the University of Minnesota, came to UMinn from a Fortune 500 company — and it shows.
• “Pipeline overviews” help market IP to investors, potential licensees. One of the most effective marketing vehicles being used by the TTO at the University of Colorado is a collateral piece they call their “pipeline overview.” The overview gives potential investors and partners a status update on current technologies.
• WARF updates technology summaries to reach wider audiences. You’d think that a TTO recognized as a leader in the field might not feel the need to revamp an entire segment of its marketing strategy, but that’s exactly what the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) did recently when it revamped its technology summaries.
• TTO exec says widely used rankings can be deceiving. TTOs with high rankings from AUTM or other organizations will rightfully use those high marks as part of their overall marketing strategy. However, such numbers can be deceiving.
• Marketing tactics help generate stimulus funds. At last year’s AUTM meeting, several attendees predicted that government stimulus funds would create a windfall for universities seeking to finance research projects, and for a number of institutions that prediction has come true.
• Four common mistakes cited as impeding successful marketing of IP. “The value of your IP is not ultimately determined by the brilliance of your science; the value of your IP is determined by what the market will pay for it — and the more leveraged value you can create from your core IP, the more the market will pay,” asserts serial entrepreneur Michael R. Drapp.
• While technology advances, characterization of IP remains key. Even the technological whizzes that devise and market newer and better ways to support TTO marketing efforts recognize that some things never change when it comes to effective IP marketing.

Posted January 25th, 2010 under Current Issue. [ Comments: none ]

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the December 2009 of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor monthly newsletter. If you are already a current subscriber click here to log in and access your issue. Not a subscriber already? Subscribe now and get access to this issue as well as all of our back issues online! Plus you will receive a free subscription to IP Marketing eNews, the weekly online companion to Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor, and a free two-week posting on the popular Job Listings section of our website.

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 2, No. 12 (pp 133-144) December 2009

• Atypical licensing approach leads to rapid exposure of important health IP. How did IP developed at the Emory School of Medicine end up on a website sponsored by Microsoft? The key players say it was a combination of being in the right place at the right time, and taking a creative approach to licensing.
• Public/private initiative seeks to bridge the IP ‘Valley of Death.’ The BioAccelerate NYC Prize, billed in its announcement as “the first citywide competition targeting commercialization of the extensive biomedical research conducted at universities and research institutions in New York City,” has been launched by The New York City Investment Fund and the New York Economic Development Corporation.
• Communication course shows science students how to pitch their technology. IP marketers are made, not born. . . . At least that’s the concept behind a course in communication skills being given to students at the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology.
• Internal marketing efforts pay off in disclosures for Louisiana Tech. Like most sales undertakings, the marketing of IP is a “numbers” game; the more technology you market (assuming you have vetted it properly), the greater your chances of success. The starting point for boosting those numbers is invention disclosures, and Richard Kordal, PhD, director of the Louisiana Tech Department of Intellectual Property & Commercialization, says he’s found several effective internal marketing strategies that have helped open the floodgates.
• UW-Madison alum tells would-be entrepreneurs how it’s done. Who better to tell future entrepreneurs how to sell their ideas and bring them to market than a serial entrepreneur who’s “been there, done that?”
• Universities building web-based network to link researchers. A consortium of universities has joined forces to create what is envisioned as a nationwide — and ultimately worldwide — network to link university researchers. Such a network, they believe, will enhance opportunities for collaboration, improve the chances of obtaining grants, and open up additional commercialization pathways.

Posted December 29th, 2009 under Current Issue. [ Comments: none ]

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the November 2009 of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor monthly newsletter. If you are already a current subscriber click here to log in and access your issue. Not a subscriber already? Subscribe now and get access to this issue as well as all of our back issues online! Plus you will receive a free subscription to IP Marketing eNews, the weekly online companion to Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor, and a free two-week posting on the popular Job Listings section of our website.

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 2, No. 11 (pp 121-132) November 2009

• New YouTube channel helps TTOs take a more targeted marketing approach. Finding and targeting the right audiences is one of the most critical processes in any marketing endeavour, and a new channel on YouTube has just made the job a bit easier for TTOs
• Faculty incentive program leads to growth in external funding. An internal marketing program comprised of a series of tiered incentives to encourage faculty to increase grant proposals has resulted in a record level of external funding for Ball State University
• ‘Entrepalooza’ exposes students to ins and outs of creating a business. Even the catchy name, a play on “Lollapalooza” and other modern rock festivals, is geared toward an audience of students. And after 10 years of drawing business-oriented students to their event, the sponsors of ‘Entrepalooza’ hope they’ve enabled many of them to pack a more powerful punch as they seek to launch their start-ups
• Guest Commentary: Disciplined use of an IP management database enhances marketing efforts
• ORNL competition seeks to translate research to market. Universities across the country sponsor a wide range of technology showcases with an equally wide range of goals including encouraging research, attracting potential partners or licensees, and giving young entrepreneurs the tools they need to succeed. National laboratories, it seems, are not all that different
• Venture Challenge winner learns valuable lessons. A member of last year’s winning team at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Global Venture Challenge says he learned valuable lessons about how to make a business case for his technology
• G 20 meet means media opportunity for universities. A prestigious international meeting such as the recent G 20 summit in Pittsburgh means one thing to marketing professionals: Lots of media. In anticipation of this influx, three local institutions joined forces to sponsor media tours aimed at gaining exposure for the contributions their research efforts have made to the Pittsburgh economy

Posted November 25th, 2009 under Current Issue. [ Comments: none ]

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the October 2009 of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor monthly newsletter. If you are already a current subscriber click here to log in and access your issue. Not a subscriber already? Subscribe now and get access to this issue as well as all of our back issues online! Plus you will receive a free subscription to IP Marketing eNews, the weekly online companion to Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor, and a free two-week posting on the popular Job Listings section of our website.

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 2, No. 10 (pp 109-120) October 2009

• IP communications: Don’t shy away from telling your story. While communications strategies are widely recognized by TTOs as an important foundation for their marketing campaigns, some executives may not be conveying all of the benefits their IP assets have to offer ……… p. 109
• U of Missouri matches marketing specialists with IP spaces. The University of Missouri system is enhancing its IP marketing efforts with the hiring of what it hopes will be the first of several marketing specialists dedicated to specific groups of technology spaces ……… p. 109
• U of Illinois benchmarks its way to improvement of IP marketing. Recognizing a disconnect between the strength of its IP and the results of commercialization efforts, the TTO at the University of Illinois-Urbana is using benchmarking and comparisons of best practices at other tech transfer offices to enhance its marketing and get more licenses signed ……… p. 110
• Tips from the Field. Creating a simple, effective blog for your TTO ……… p. 111
• State innovation agency’s web site offers useful model for TTOs. The Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology, a state agency, was established to foster innovation in existing and developing businesses, support basic and applied research, facilitate technology transfer, and provide seed capital for innovative firms and their products. Though it is not a TTO per se, the center’s recent revamp of its website — a key part of its marketing and outreach — offers a useful model for university technology managers ……… p. 116
• OU hires outside firm to help spur commercialization. If sporadic interaction with an outside technology commercialization firm has been good for its IP marketing efforts, reasoned the University of Oklahoma Office of Technology Development, then more regular interaction would be even better. That’s why OU recently signed a collaborative agreement with i2e, Inc., a private not-for-profit Oklahoma corporation that has worked with a number of research institutions in the state to enhance technology transfer and commercialization, particularly with start-ups ……… p. 118

Posted October 27th, 2009 under Current Issue. [ Comments: none ]

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the September 2009 of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor monthly newsletter. If you are already a current subscriber click here to log in and access your issue. Not a subscriber already? Subscribe now and get access to this issue as well as all of our back issues online! Plus you will receive a free subscription to IP Marketing eNews, the weekly online companion to Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor, and a free two-week posting on the popular Job Listings section of our website.

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 2, No. 9 (pp 97-108) September 2009

• Case Western exec: Don’t manage your IP — market it. Focusing on marketing IP — as opposed to managing it — is the key to maximizing commercialization opportunities for university TTOs, says Mark E. Coticchia, vice president of Case Western Reserve University’s Office of Research and Technology Management ……… p. 97
• ‘Speed-dating’ event matches inventors with potential partners. Speed-dating, it appears, is not reserved for singles anxious to check out potential mates. A recent event at the Science + Technology Park at Johns Hopkins introduced 12 faculty members to 13 entrepreneurs in hopes of telescoping the time it takes for inventors to find partners – and to spread the word that Hopkins is very much in the start-up business ……… p. 97
• U of Kentucky launches privately-funded firm to help clinicians commercialize inventions. A privately funded firm called Therix Medical has been established by the University of Kentucky to help University of Kentucky HealthCare clinicians turn their ideas into products. Funds are currently being solicited for the newly formed company, which is expected to establish an experienced business team to work with clinicians in prototype development, regulatory assessment, financial modeling, and IP ……… p. 98
• At the CDC, tech transfer is all about relationships. Picture this: You’re standing in your booth during a major trade show and one of your researchers approaches with a gentleman in tow. “I’d like you to meet Mr. ‘X,’” he says. “He may be interested in licensing the potential vaccine I’m developing” ……… p. 99
• Your ‘carrot’ licenses may be ‘stick’ licenses in disguise. Alexander Poltorak, PhD, CEO of General Patent Corporation International, says viewing your deals only as “carrot” licenses, as opposed to their potential also as “sticks,” may limit the effectiveness of your overall licensing efforts ……… p. 105
• Attorney organizes ‘summit’ to help spin out U of Hawaii IP. Frustrated by the slow pace of commercialization from the University of Hawaii, a local IP attorney has taken the lead on jump-starting spinout activity there ……… p. 106

Posted October 2nd, 2009 under Current Issue. [ Comments: none ]

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the August 2009 of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor monthly newsletter. If you are already a current subscriber click here to log in and access your issue. Not a subscriber already? Subscribe now and get access to this issue as well as all of our back issues online! Plus you will receive a free subscription to IP Marketing eNews, the weekly online companion to Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor, and a free two-week posting on the popular Job Listings section of our website.

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 2, No. 8 (pp 85-96) August 2009

• Oregon universities seek to establish a collective brand. Four of Oregon’s leading research universities have launched a new website to promote interaction between industry and academia. But the site, Innovate Collaborate Oregon, is more than an isolated collaboration; it is but one phase of a plan the universities have developed to create a collective brand ……… p. 85
• UT-Austin collaborates with other organizations to enhance IP exposure. After a series of increasingly successful annual conferences called “Ready to Commercialize,” which featured presentations by faculty inventors and talks by industry leaders, the OTT at the University of Texas-Austin decided to scale back and hold their conference every other year, using the off years to collaborate with other organizations ……… p. 85
• Marketing on Facebook: How to set up a fan page for your TTO. As university technology transfer offices face shrinking budgets and their potential clients gravitate towards social media, Facebook fan pages offer a powerful, no-cost way to market technologies and services ……… p. 86
• Incubator run by UMich students shows there’s strength in numbers. A basement in downtown Ann Arbor, MI, has become the temporary home of 11 small start-ups and 30 student entrepreneurs from the University of Michigan in a high-energy community called TechArb. They share space, equipment, and ideas, and are living proof, according to the student entrepreneur whose vision it was, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts ……… p. 93
• ‘Valorisation’ firms enhance marketability of Canadian IP. Universities in the U.S. have access to any number of outside organizations that can help them market their IP and move technologies closer to commercialization; these vendors are independent organizations that are free to provide their services to any number of clients. In Canada, however, a small number of universities are served by affiliated organizations that perform many of the same functions, called “societies de valorisation universitaires” ……… 94

Posted August 28th, 2009 under Current Issue. [ Comments: none ]

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the July 2009 of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor monthly newsletter. If you are already a current subscriber click here to log in and access your issue. Not a subscriber already? Subscribe now and get access to this issue as well as all of our back issues online! Plus you will receive a free subscription to IP Marketing eNews, the weekly online companion to Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor, and a free two-week posting on the popular Job Listings section of our website.

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 2, No. 7 (pp 73-84) July 2009

• Pre-seed workshops help inventors, TTOs make ‘go/no-go’ decisions. Of all the decisions a TTO executive has to make, the “go/no-go” decision on new technologies is one of the most difficult. Marnie LaVigne, PhD, director of business development for the New York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, a University of Buffalo research center, says she has made that process a bit easier by sponsoring a series of “Pre-Seed Workshops” for inventors ……… p. 73
• TTO nurtures inventors, technology into the start-up phase. EXCMR, Ltd., a Columbus, OH-based start-up spun out of The Ohio State University, has achieved its current status — it’s readying the release of its technology to hospitals and patients — not only through the creativity of its inventors, but thanks to the marketing guidance the inventors received from the university’s Technology Licensing and Commercialization Office ……… p. 73
• Successful media relations strategy relies heavily on e-mail promotion. Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd., the leading tech transfer company in Singapore, employs a wide array of marketing strategies to spread the word about its activities. But perhaps its highest concentration of effort is in targeted media relations campaigns, reinforced by a steady flow of e-mail promotional pieces. This approach is clearly paying off, according to Boon Swan Foo, Exploit’s executive chairman. “Media coverage of news has been consistently high, and media attendance at events has also been consistently high,” he reports. “Exploit Tech has had more than 200 mentions in the media — broadcast, print and online — in the year 2008.” That ‘hit rate,’ he adds, should be even higher in 2009 based on year-to-date performance ……… p. 74
• Marketing joint projects goes more smoothly with a designated leader. A quick look at the list of recipients of $2.9 million in research funding through the inaugural Maryland Nanobiotechnology Research and Industry Competition grants program reveals some telling facts. First, of the 12 projects selected, eight involved the University of Maryland (UM) system. All of the eight UM winners involved collaborations with more than one institution. So the question naturally arises: When ongoing research involves crosses campus lines, how is the technology marketed? ……… p. 80
• Georgia university innovations featured on statewide IP marketing portal. A new collaborative project in Georgia is marketing IP developed in the state’s public and private universities on a single website, with an unmistakable goal in mind: To attract more businesses to the state ……… p. 81
• Program helps young entrepreneurs lay foundation for success. A collaborative a group of Canadian academic and economic development centers is launching a project next month at the University of Windsor aimed at helping young entrepreneurs conduct market research, investigate cross-border and online business issues, and prepare business plans for new ventures ……… p. 82

Posted August 3rd, 2009 under Current Issue. [ Comments: none ]

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the June 2009 of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor monthly newsletter. If you are already a current subscriber click here to log in and access your issue. Not a subscriber already? Subscribe now and get access to this issue as well as all of our back issues online! Plus you will receive a free subscription to IP Marketing eNews, the weekly online companion to Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor, and a free two-week posting on the popular Job Listings section of our website.

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 2, No. 6 (pp 61-72) June 2009

• Faculty a critical part of assessment and triage process. “Technology transfer is about relationships . . . period,” says Chad Hardaway, MBA, JD, director of the IP office at the University of South Carolina. “We do not license technologies alone; we license people.” Too often, however, assessment and triage focuses only on value propositions, the state of the market, the strength of the competition, and other typical criteria. But Hardaway and other tech transfer veterans say its critical to also factor in the human element — particularly the inventor ……… p. 61
• Your alumni can provide “knowledge capital,” not just cash. When you hear the word “alumni” in tech transfer circles the next word that often comes to mind is “donation,” but leaders at Mississippi State believe such an approach can be short-sighted when it comes to the kinds of help they need to move their technologies forward - especially their start-ups. In recent events involving alumni, notes licensing associate Chase Kasper, MBA, “we’ve made it clear we’re not just looking for capital infusion, but for knowledge capital. We’re in the process of building some bridges in terms of matching technologies with appropriate industry experiences. We are not necessarily looking for an investment of money” ……… p. 61
• British tech transfer firm ‘tweets’ to spread the word about its activities. MRC Technology, the tech transfer and commercialization company for the prestigious Medical Research Council of the U.K., has begun using Twitter to boost its tech transfer and translational communications ……… p. 62
• Firm creates ‘pipeline’ of potential partners to gain efficiency in IP marketing. When clients of Foresight Science & Technology are looking to license their IP or find partners, the company often has a ready list of contacts to provide them thanks to a marketing initiative the Providence, RI-based company has developed called “Pipeline Partners.” Phyl Speser, JD, PhD, the CEO and founder of Foresight, describes it as an “internally developed and frequently updated network of companies interested in licensing or buying new technologies from Foresight customers.” The pipeline now numbers several hundred partners “and we’re constantly growing,” he says. It’s an idea TTOs may want to adapt as part of their own marketing operations ……… p. 63
• State legislators targeted in TTO’s ‘Posters in the Rotunda’ campaign. Universities target many different audiences as they seek to spread the word about their research — and for the University of Wisconsin System, that includes state senators and representatives. That’s exactly who UW was targeting recently with their sixth annual “Posters in the Rotunda” event ……… p. 68
• Tip of the Month: Communicate with PR office to avoid surprise publications, protect patentability ……… p. 69
• Custom-built IP management software enhances marketing for Yissum. A new IP management software system called TTM (Technology Transfer Management), recently installed at Yissum, the tech transfer company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has made a dramatic difference in the company’s marketing efforts. And those efforts are considerable. Yissum-licensed IP accounts for well over over $1 billion in sales annually, and its own revenues topped $60 million in 2008 ……… p. 70

Posted June 29th, 2009 under Current Issue. [ Comments: none ]

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the May 2009 of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor monthly newsletter. If you are already a current subscriber click here to log in and access your issue. Not a subscriber already? Subscribe now and get access to this issue as well as all of our back issues online! Plus you will receive a free subscription to IP Marketing eNews, the weekly online companion to Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor, and a free two-week posting on the popular Job Listings section of our website.

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 2, No. 5 (pp 49-60) May 2009

• Experts provide guidance on enhancing the value of your TTO’s brand. The term ‘branding’ is still relatively new in tech transfer marketing circles, and as such carries an aura of sophistication and complexity that may intimidate some TTO executives into thinking they’re not yet ‘ready’ to undertake branding activity. But the truth of the matter, says James Zanewicz, JD, LLM, of the University of Louisville Office of Technology Transfer, is that “whether you realize it or not, you create your brand with everything you do every day.” ……… p. 49
• Is blogging the next marketing frontier for your TTO? Blogs have become an important part of the communication landscape for the younger generation and for the more creative and aggressive marketers on the Internet, but they have yet to catch fire as a new venue for IP marketing. “I did some research about a year ago and found only one TTO that had a blog — the University of Nebraska,” recalls Lindsay Polak, marketing/communication manager for the University of Colorado TTO in Boulder. Polak just launched her blog in mid-2008 ……… p. 49
• Purdue brings Indiana schools together in research database to enhance tech transfer. Sometimes ‘sharing the wealth’ with other universities can mean enhanced IP marketing opportunities for all. That’s certainly the hope at Purdue University, which has encouraged the expansion of its Purdue University Research Expertise (PURE) database to include other state institutions, namely Indiana University, Ball State University, and the University of Notre Dame. The database, now called The Indiana Database of Research of University Expertise (INDURE), enables visitors to the site to enter technology search words and discover the most active researchers in a given area (ranked in order of their actual accomplishments), and then ‘drill down’ for a listing of their publications and grants ……… p. 50
• Initial license agreement confirms value of industry-university collaboration model. A recently signed license agreement for an asthma drug has confirmed the value of a unique three-way collaboration. The licensed technology comes from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, and the deal was negotiated by the University of Tennessee Research Foundation (UTRF) with licensee Cumberland Emerging Technologies (CET). Under the agreement, CET — which is a joint initiative between Cumberland Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Vanderbilt University, and the Tennessee Technology Development Corporation — is providing formulation, grant funding, regulatory and product development assistance in exchange for rights to commercialize the new technology ……… p. 56
• TTO posts videos for faculty members on YouTube, iTunes. It started as a simple faculty request, but it has evolved into a unique internal marketing strategy. If you go to the YouTube home page and type in “UOIT Office of Technology Transfer and Commercialization,” you’ll be linked to a series of videos ‘starring’ Mike Szarka, PhD, manager of technology transfer & commercialization at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. The videos, a series of discussions on copyright issues, have also recently become available on iTunes ……… p. 59

Posted May 28th, 2009 under Current Issue. [ Comments: none ]

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the April 2009 of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor monthly newsletter. If you are already a current subscriber click here to log in and access your issue. Not a subscriber already? Subscribe now and get access to this issue as well as all of our back issues online! Plus you will receive a free subscription to IP Marketing eNews, the weekly online companion to Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor, and a free two-week posting on the popular Job Listings section of our website.

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 2, No. 4 (pp 37-48) April 2009

• Cornell creates inventor portal to address diverse faculty needs. Alan Paau, CLP, MBA, PhD, executive director and vice provost for technology transfer & economic development at Cornell University, knows that not all inventors are created equal; they have different levels of curiosity about the status of their inventions, different levels of involvement in commercialization efforts, and different senses of urgency about the pace of licensing and marketing activity. A desire to meet those diverse needs — and to serve faculty members at a level appropriate to their requirements — was a driving force behind the development of MyIP, a portal on the website of the Cornell Center for Technology Enterprise and Commercialization (CTEC) that continually updates information on patent status, licensing status and marketing status ……… p. 37
• Texas A&M tool assesses IP’s market potential, provides admin reporting mechanism. A tool called TechAssess, developed at Texas A&M, has proved to be an invaluable aide in determining the market potential of university IP, while at the same time providing an effective mechanism for communicating a clear progress report to administration ……… p. 37
• Faculty relations are top-of-mind concern for TTO executives. If you put a group of TTO and IP marketing executives together in a room and allowed them to vent about absolutely anything, what would emerge as their most nagging concern? The economy? More effective outreach to potential licensees? If you guessed gaining the cooperation and trust of faculty, you get a gold star. When AUTM decided to try something new at its 2009 Annual Meeting and host a free-for-all discussion at a “Marketing Town Hall Forum,” attendees came back time and again to the same thing: Improving relations with researchers ……… p. 38
• ‘Clemson Cluster’ event strengthens ties with licensees, incubators. An event held in February at the Clemson University Advanced Materials Research Laboratory to recognize technology-based companies in upstate South Carolina was just the first of many events designed to honor and support the ‘Clemson Cluster’ — 18 companies that have either licensed Clemson intellectual property or are located in university-affiliated incubation space ……… p. 39
• Small university TTO invests in full-time marketing director. Many large TTOs do not have a full-time marketing director, so what was the head of the small office at the University of Nevada thinking when he began a search for a director of intellectual property marketing and business development? More disclosures, better faculty relations, and more deals down the road ……… p. 45
• Decentralization of TTOs aids marketing efforts in university systems. About a dozen years ago the TTO at the University of Massachusetts generated only $200,000 in revenues; in recent years it has been ranked either second or third in New England with revenues between $35 million and $40 million — not bad when you keep company with such names as Harvard and MIT. Moving from a central tech transfer office to more local control on each system campus has been critical to success ……… p. 46

Posted April 17th, 2009 under Current Issue. [ Comments: none ]

The following is a list of the articles that appear in the March 2009 of Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor monthly newsletter. If you are already a current subscriber click here to log in and access your issue. Not a subscriber already? Subscribe now and get access to this issue as well as all of our back issues online! Plus you will receive a free subscription to IP Marketing eNews, the weekly online companion to Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor, and a free two-week posting on the popular Job Listings section of our website.

Intellectual Property Marketing Advisor,
Vol. 2, No. 3 (pp 25-36) March 2009

• Three keys to successfully expanding tech transfer public relations efforts. Expanding your public relations efforts — and getting results — can be a difficult challenge for a tech transfer office. After all, PR is not often thought of as one of the prerequisite skills for TTO staff. As the Science and Technology Ventures (STV) office at Columbia University has found, it takes a coordinated effort on several fronts to produce a successful initiative. In their case, it involved three key components ……… p. 25
• Internal marketing helps spur start-up success at Johns Hopkins. In fiscal 2008 Johns Hopkins University launched 12 start-up companies — three times as many as the previous year, and more than twice as many as in any year this decade. Six of the 12 have been VC- or corporate-funded, and in aggregate the start-ups have raised more than $76 million in private investment ……… p. 25
• ‘StratComm’ lays the foundation for IP marketing success. It may not be the sexiest part of your IP marketing responsibilities, but it could be the most important: Experts agree that a solid strategic communications (“StratComm”) approach is an essential ingredient in any marketing success story ……… p. 26
• Consulting firm helps NASA develop two-pronged strategy for IP marketing. Nona Cheeks, MBA, Chief of the Innovative Partnerships Program for the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, freely admits that IP strategy is not the forte of government agencies. That’s why in 2001 she started working with the technology consulting group, Fuentek, LLC. That partnership has proved beneficial not just for Cheeks and NASA, but for Fuentek as well — the firm became a NASA central contractor in late 2007 ……… p. 27
• Computer “grid” capacity helps university prof boost his invention’s marketability. Sometimes refining or augmenting an invention based on feedback from outside experts or even a sharp group of students can be a powerful marketing strategy, allowing you to fine-tune a technology so it better meets your prospect’s needs. That strategy played out recently at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where one scientist went back to the drawing board after receiving a marketing assessment from a multi-disciplinary team of graduate students at the U of California, Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative. Said the scientist: “This was a really great reality check; now we know what we have to do next if we want it to thrive” ……… p. 33
• Experience as intern helps TTO exec select ‘next generation’ of marketing staffers. Tari Suprapto, PhD, assistant director in The Rockefeller University Office of Technology Transfer, believes in “paying it forward.” Having started her tech transfer career as an intern at Rockefeller, she now leans on that experience to inform her decision-making as she chooses her own interns to assist with the department’s marketing efforts ……… p. 34

Posted March 16th, 2009 under Current Issue. [ Comments: none ]

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