University Spinouts: Best Practices and Issues

University technology transfer and commercialization activities that create spinout companies increasingly impact local and state economies. Each year Stanford University files more than 300 patents, and has produced spinout winners that include Google, Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Cisco Systems, and Yahoo. Similarly, each year at MIT about 150 new university-related companies are founded, with at least 10 percent of those directly resulting from university technology transfer and commercialization activities.

Bi-coastal university “stars” are impressive for commercializable inventions, but major players in Midwest and central states include the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Purdue University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Iowa State University (ISU). ISU, for example, has over 450 active licenses yielding income and ranks in the nation’s top five for active licenses and licenses executed (when intellectual property (IP) data is “normalized” to account for differences in research and development expenditures).*

Diane Palmintera
President
Innovation Associates
Reston, VA

Full Story: http://cfi-institute.org/VP%20-%20University%20Spinouts%20Best%20Practices%20and%20Issues%20-%20Palmintera.html