Tables turning for TTOs

Abstract

As university technology transfer offices grapple with how best to commercialize their discoveries, about 25 international universities are turning to Easy Access IP, a strategy to give patented inventions away for free. Supporters argue that giving away IP attracts potential investors, while some non-adopter technology transfer office heads think companies will only be attracted by well-fleshed-out legal agreements. At the heart of the debate is an issue technology transfer offices (TTOs) and other stakeholders in translational research have talked about for years—the inefficiency and expense associated with licensing university patents. Earlier this year, the Brookings Institution released a report that helped quantify the problem. The report looked at numbers from 155 TTOs that are members of the Association of University Technology Managers and found that less than 13% of universities generate enough revenue from licensing deals to cover their operating costs. 1 The goal of Easy Access IP is to drive down those expenses. Kevin Cullen pioneered the strategy in 2010 when he was at the University of Glasgow and found that the cost of supporting all the activities involved in licensing inventions was rarely matched by the revenues received. Cullen is now CEO of NewSouth Innovations, the tech transfer arm of The University of New South Wales. Easy Access IP differs from the standard TTO model of patenting and licensing for profit as many inventions as possible. Instead, a university still patents the invention, but it gives away the majority— often up to about 95%—of its IP licenses for free, thus bypassing the high costs and lengthy negotiations that often prevent academic discoveries from being commercialized. Deals require a one-page contract in which the licensor commits to perform some activity related to the invention within three years, agrees to acknowledge the university if the IP is successfully exploited and guarantees not to take action against the university for pursuing research in that area.