SBIR Programs and Product Commercialization: Kinetic Art & Technology - An Example

The SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) program provides a way to assist entrepreneurs in commercializing their technology, and it provides government access to new technology. There are many issues facing technology start-ups. Some of the issues and possible responses are discussed. Kinetic Art & Technology (KAT) is an SBIR success story. With almost four million dollars in federal grant funds, the company developed and is commercializing new electric motor technology. The issues they faced and the decisions they made are key components of their success

Entrepreneurship Summit Executive Summary

Summarizes discussions from an April 2008 conference on the core components of an effective entrepreneurship support program, policy options for building an infrastructure that fosters innovation, and concepts to be explored, such as "economic gardening.

Commercializing University Innovations: A Better Way

With the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, the federal government explicitly endorsed the transfer of exclusive control over government-funded inventions to universities and businesses operating with federal contracts. While this legislation was intended to accelerate further development and commercialization of the ideas and inventions developed under federal contracts, the government did not provide any strategy, process, tools, or resources to shepherd innovations from the halls of academia into the commercial market. And more than twenty-five years later, it is clear that few universities have established an overall strategy to foster innovation, commercialization, and spillovers. Multiple pathways for university innovation exist and can be codified to provide broader access to innovation, allow a greater volume of deal flow, support standardization, and decrease the redundancy of innovation and the cycle time for commercialization. Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) were envisioned as gateways to facilitate the flow of innovation but have instead become gatekeepers that in many cases constrain the flow of inventions and frustrate faculty, entrepreneurs, and industry. The proposed changes focus on creating incentives that will maximize social benefit from the existing investments being made in R&D and commercialization on university campuses.

Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Policies towards the Commercialization of University Intellectual Property

What national policies are most efficient in promoting the commercialization of university-generated knowledge? We address this question by characterizing and evaluating the policy pursued in Sweden and the US, two countries that put a great deal of resources into university R&D, but follow very different models for commercialization. Despite a leading academic record, there is an impression of laggard rates of commercialization of academic research results in Sweden. Although there exist no micro data to evaluate this impression, we argue that it is likely to be true in part due to the top-down nature of Swedish policies aimed at commercializing these innovations as well as an academic environment that discourages academics from actively participating in the commercialization of their ideas. This sits in stark contrast to a US institutional setting characterized by competition between universities for research funds and research personnel, which in turn has led to significant academic freedoms to interact with industry, including significant involvement in new firms.Academic entrepreneurship; Innovation; Intellectual property; R&D; Spin-off firms; Technology transfer; University-industry relations; Universities and business formation

From knowledge to wealth : transforming Russian science and technology for a modern knowledge economy

Russia possesses a sophisticated science and technology (S&T) infrastructure (research capability, technically trained workforce, and technical research universities) which, even today, is a world leader in many fields. Despite this world class basic research capacity, Russia's exports are primarily raw materials. At a time when wealth depends to an increasing degree on knowledge, Russia does not have an effective system for converting its scientific capacity into wealth. Russia's S&T resources are isolated bureaucratically (they are deployed in the rigid hierarchical system devised in the 1920s to mobilize resources for rapid state-planned industrial development and national defense), functionally (there are few links between the supply of S&T output by research institutes and the demand for S&T by Russian or foreign enterprises), and geographically (many assets are located in formerly closed cities or isolated science/atomic cities). Overcoming these inefficiencies and adjusting the S&T system to the demands of a market economy will require a major program of institutional and sectoral reform. Part I of this paper describes the ambiguous legacy of the Soviet S&T system and the status of the Russian S&T sector after 10 years of transition. Part II describes the evolution of the Russian system of intellectual property rights protection from Soviet times to the present and argues that Russia will never develop a successful commercialization program until it clarifies the ownership of the large stock of intellectual property funded with federal budget resources. Part III outlines a comprehensive 10-point sectoral reform program to improve the efficiency of government research and development spending and link the Russian S&T system with market forces.ICT Policy and Strategies,Public Health Promotion,Scientific Research&Science Parks,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,General Technology,ICT Policy and Strategies,Scientific Research&Science Parks,Science Education,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,General Technology

Research Faculty, Entrepreneurship and Commercialization: The Case of Kansas State University

In this study, we assess the relationships between the demographic characteristics of researchers and their perspectives on entrepreneurship and the commercialization of their inventions, and analyze the relationship between faculty perceptions of university commercialization policies and their entrepreneurial orientation. We conclude that there is a need for effective educational programs to address each of the issues and increase awareness among faculty and researchers.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Demand vs. Supply Driven Innovations: US and Swedish Experiences in Academic Entrepreneurship

Measured by per-capita publication measures, Sweden is an academic powerhouse. Hence, its inability to commercialize on these accomplishments is a puzzle. This paper attributes this failure to the top-down nature of Swedish policies aimed at commercializing these innovations as well as an academic environment that discourages academics from actively participating in the commercialization of their ideas. This sits in stark contrast to the US institutional setting that is characterized by competition between universities for research funds and research personnel, which in turn has led to significant academic freedoms to interact with industry, particularly by founding new firms. We conclude that the technocratic, supply-driven nature of attempts to exploit academic output in Sweden has been markedly less successful than the demand-driven market institutions in the US.Academic entrepreneurship; Innovation; R&D; Spin-off firms; Technology transfer; University-industry relations; Universities and business formation

Promoting Academic Entrepreneurship in Europe and the United States: Creating an Intellectual Property Regime to Facilitate the Efficient Transfer of Knowledge from the Lab to the Patient

In 2014, the European Commission announced the launch of a study of knowledge transfer by public research organizations and other institutes of higher learning “to determine which additional measures might be needed to ensure an optimal flow of knowledge between the public research organisations and business thereby contributing to the development of the knowledge based economy.” As the European Commission has recognized, the European Union (“EU”) needs to take action to “unlock the potential of IPRs [intellectual property rights] that lie dormant in universities, research institutes and companies.” This article builds on our earlier work on structuring efficient pharmaceutical public-private partnerships (“PPPPs”), but focuses on the regulatory infrastructure necessary to support the efficient commercialization of publicly funded university medical research in both the European Union and the United States (“U.S.”). Our comparative analysis of the EU and U.S. approaches to translational medicine shows that there are lessons to be shared. The EU can apply the experiences from the U.S. Bayh-Dole Act and PPPPs in the United States, and the United States can emulate certain of the open innovation aspects of the European Innovative Medicines Initiative and the tighter patenting standards imposed by the European Patent Office. Thus, a secondary purpose of this article is suggesting amendments to the U.S. laws governing the patenting and licensing of government-funded technology to prevent undue burdens on the sharing of certain upstream medical discoveries and research tools

The Distributed Partnering Model for Drug Discovery and Development

Proposes a model for bringing new drugs to market efficiently by creating "product definition companies" that would acquire early-stage discoveries from research institutions and invest in defining product applications to sell to pharmaceutical companies