In recent years, universities in the United
States and China have begun establishing their own Technology Transfer Offices
(TTOs) to manage and commercialize intellectual property (IP) within
universities. These TTOs act as intermediaries between university researchers,
students and faculty, and businesses, and contribute to creating an economy
from generating revenue to increasing employment opportunities for students by
commercializing university innovations.
In this issue, we’ll look at the growth of
University Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) which increase in universities in
the United States and China.
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l USA
The role of university TTOs
The primary role of American university
TTOs is to foster and support development and invention in general. It
encourages professors and students to submit technical inventions to the TTO,
and determine patent protection considering the analysis of the invention and
the market value and maturity level of the technology. It also helps inventors
obtain support in the technology transfer process. The reason TTO provides
sufficient support to inventors is that their inventions have high potential
for commercialization.
University TTOs activities
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Major activities of university TTOs
(source: World Patent Information 68, 2022) |
IP
management and technology licensing
The TTOs manages intellectual property
rights and conducts a preliminary evaluation of inventions to determine whether
they meet the criteria for filing a patent and commercial value. And then
decide whether to apply for patent protection for your invention. Also TTOs
evaluates published inventions and investigate the market readiness and
commercial potential in detail. Through this process they determine whether to
enter into a technology licensing agreement or establish a spin-off company.
Industry-university
cooperation
Some universities in the US have already collaborated
with TTOs having separate departments of industrial and corporate studies. Many
TTOs are responsible for building and maintaining partnerships between industry
and universities that can lead to innovative technology discovery and
employment and wealth creation. In order to achieve successful
industry-university cooperation, mutual understanding, goals, and
complementarity between industry and university must be reflected.
Academic
Entrepreneurship
Academic Entrepreneurship aims to foster
the entrepreneurial spirit, skills, and character of students. This is an
effort to promote the growth of students' entrepreneurship and also very
important for TTOs. TTOs carries out activities providing financial support or
resources for capacity development such as education, training, and research.
Proof
of Concept (PoC) for Funding
PoC is the process of verifying the
feasibility of a new project and its effectiveness and utility. TTOs also play
a role in proving the PoC and attracting funds. Verification evaluates
inventors' proposals based on Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) developed by NASA.
The results reflected by evaluation are used to estimate the size of the fund
and reflected to attract the fund and plan the activities.
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Technology Readiness Levels (TRL)
(source : World Patent Information 68) |
Management
of university’s IP policy
TTOs manage the university's IP policy as
well as TTOs internally. It is common for TTOs in the United States to
establish intellectual property policies that comprehensively cover legal
issues related to participation agreements, disclosure and review, inventions
(including student inventions), and returns of inventions.
l CHINA
Status of China's IP Development
China has developed gradually since its
first intellectual property law was officially adopted in the 1980s. Since
then, social awareness of IP and the law in China has also increased, and most
Chinese universities own IP under the support of the Chinese government and
have the rights to generate revenue. In particular, in 2002, China granted a
significant number of IP rights through government funding to universities, and
since then, the number of patent applications filed by Chinese universities has
increased dramatically. From 2016 to 2020, Chinese universities received 568,825
patent grants out of the total patent grants issued by the State Intellectual
Property Office of China. This is due to the growing understanding and
appreciation of intellectual property in China's universities and the growing
acceptance of the concept of intellectual property within Chinese culture. In
particular, China's prestigious universities, such as Tsinghua University, are
contributing to the improvement of China's IP and increasing invention values
as well as their own capabilities through IP management and commercialization.
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2016-2020 Statistis on patent grants of major universities in China
(source: World Patent Information 68)
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TTOs of China's top university, Tsinghua
University
True to its name as China's most
prestigious university, Tsinghua University is also making top-notch
achievements in technology transfer and technological innovation. In September
2003, Tsinghua Holdings, an internal IP asset management organization, was
established. Since then, it has developed into a subsidiary for the
commercialization of research technology, and is currently mainly performing
tasks such as technology transfer, IP management, cooperation with large
companies, entrepreneurship and planning technology strategy.
Tsinghua Holdings has commercialized 56
national technological innovations and 62 key technological developments, and
has contributed to the commercialization of 3 national science and technology
projects. Tsinghua University TTO invested 6.95% in R&D from royalties and
startup revenue in 2016, ranking 6th among China's top 500 companies.
In the meantime, university TTOs have had
many difficulties in commercializing IP with academic significance due to the
lack of professional technical manpower. But now, under the leadership of the
state, it is also attracting funds to develop technologies in cooperation with
universities, governments and industries, and provides economic support and
tools to commercialize researchers' ideas. The background of the US and China's
vitalization of university technology transfer and the growth of TTOs can be
seen as closely related to the legislative framework and policies of the two
governments that actively encourage IP management and technology transfer. It
is hoped that technology transfer and technology sharing will further increase
through active cooperation between universities and industries along with the
preparation of policy foundations.
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– World Patent Information 68 (2022)
“An overview on patenting trends and
technology commercialization practices in the university technology transfer
offices in USA and China”
