University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office

Introducing CU’s New Tech Explorer
The TTO is happy to announce that our new, revamped technology search function is now live on our website. Tech Explorer allows visitors to browse CU technologies by area of application, and provides non-confidential summaries in PDF form, as well as contact information for each technology. While many technologies of interest can be found here, it is impossible to list all CU inventions – we urge visitors to contact TTO directly to learn about our newest opportunities. Tech Explorer can be accessed from the main TTO site by clicking on “Available CU Technologies” or by going directly to http://techexplorer.cusys.edu/.
 
University of Colorado Licenses Melanoma Markers to Source MDx
The University of Colorado TTO has executed a license agreement with Source MDx, granting exclusive rights to CU’s intellectual property around melanoma gene markers. Source will use the markers to develop molecular diagnostic tests for early diagnosis and prognosis of melanoma, the most aggressive and life-threatening form of skin cancer. (The American Cancer Society projects that more than 62,000 people in the United States will be diagnosed with melanoma in 2006 and the cumulative lifetime risk for melanoma is now estimated to be around 1:65 in the United States. Cure rates depend greatly on the stage of melanoma by the time of detection.) Based on Source MDx’s patented molecular medicine technology, the diagnostics were developed in a research collaboration between Source and UCDHSC.

CU TTO at Big XII Innovation Conference
The University of Colorado showcased several of its high-potential startup companies at a technology commercialization conference held Feb. 28 and Mar. 1 in Kansas City, MO. Hosted by the Big XII Center for Economic Development, Innovation and Commercialization (CEDIC), and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the conference was held in conjunction with Entrepreneurship Week USA. The goal of the Conference: boost collaboration among Big XII universities, foundations, state governments and the private sector as a means to encourage and foster innovation-driven economic development in the central United States.

CU-based companies who presented to a panel of venture capitalists included OpX Biotechnologies and Copernican Energy, both alternative-energy focused companies, and Mentor Interactive, a developer of educational and entertaining software for teaching children to read. CU inventor Ryan Gill, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at CU-Boulder and co-founder of OpX, was awarded recognition as a “Rising Star” for his work in metabolic engineering, directed evolution and genomics. Local serial entrepreneur and business advisor R.C. “Merc” Mercure, co-founder of Ball Aerospace and CDM Optics (to mention his first and latest companies), and advisor to dozens of start-up companies received a “Hero” award for leaders who have encouraged innovation in their respective Big 12 communities. Additionally, CU’s Associate Vice President for Technology Transfer, David Allen, participated as a panelist during the conference.

SBIR/STTR Solicitations
Researchers: the Department of Defense has recently put out its 2007 solicitations, viewable at http://www.dodsbir.net/solicitation/.  STTR solicitations require companies to partner with University researchers.  If any of the new solicitations are a good match for your research capabilities, contact Terry Boult (tboult@cs.uccs.edu) for assistance in identifying a small business who can submit the proposal with you. Terry Boult is a faculty member at UCCS; he provides this service through the Colorado Institute for Technology Transfer and Implementation (CITTI).

Spring Proof of Concept Investment (POCi) – Application Deadline April 6, 2007
The application deadline for the upcoming TTO Proof of Concept investment (POCi) round is April 6, 2007.  The POCi program provides early stage “seed” investments to enable the further development and validation of promising CU technologies that are, or will become, the platform for a CU start-up company.  POCi program investments are $100,000 each and are determined based on a competitive application process.  POCi funds must be used primarily for applied research, prototype development and testing, and other technology-focused research and development activities directed toward establishing the commercial viability of the technology.  Information about the POCi program, selection criteria, application requirements, and the application form are available at https://www.cusys.edu/techtransfer/proof/investments.html. For questions about the POCi program, contact Tom Smerdon, Director, New Business Development, at tom.smerdon@cu.edu or 303-735-0621.

Spring Non-Bioscience Proof of Concept Grant (POCg) – Application Deadline April 13, 2007
The POCg Spring 2007 grant round is underway and applications may be submitted to the TTO through Friday, April 13, 2007. This round of POC grants provides funds to enable the further development and validation of promising non-bioscience CU technologies that are, or will become, suitable for commercialization.  (Note: bioscience-related projects will be considered for POC funding in Fall 2007.) For more information about the POCg, selection criteria, and application requirements, visit https://www.cusys.edu/techtransfer/proof/grants.html or contact your TTO case manager.

Legislative Update: Matters of Interest to the Technology Transfer Community
HB 1060 – Bioscience Research Grants passed in the House and goes in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee April 15th.  Find stories on this bill in the Coloradoan and the Denver Business Journal.

SB 097 – Allocation of Tobacco Litigation Settlement Moneys (which would in part help CU’s Health Sciences Center) passed the House and Senate and is waiting for signature by the Governor.     

SB 182 – Higher Education Competitive Federally Funded Research introduced to the Senate Higher Education Committee but not yet on the calendar.

Colorado Bioscience Legislative Initiatives Among BIO's Best Practices in the Nation
Two Colorado bioscience legislative initiatives are included in the national BIO "State Legislative Best Practices in Support of Bioscience Industry Development," report issued late last year reviewing state legislation effectively promoting growth of bioscience clusters in 2005-06.

CU Technology and Licensee Companies in the News

CU 5th in Start-up Companies Created Among US Universities for FY 2005
According to a survey released by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), the University of Colorado ranked 5th among all reporting universities for number of start-ups created, with 9 new companies in FY 2005. For overall income generated by tech transfer activity, CU ranked 13th with $27,352,470.

REAL D Acquires ColorLink
On March 8 REAL D, a leader in digital 3-D technology, announced its acquisition of Boulder-based ColorLink, one of the world’s leading inventors and suppliers of photonics-based solutions. Under the agreement, ColorLink (a spin-off from research conducted at CU) will become a subsidiary of REAL D and Leo Bannon, president and CEO of ColorLink, will become chief operating officer of REAL D. The acquisition includes ColorLink’s R&D campus in Boulder as well as its manufacturing facilities in Tokyo and Shanghai. REAL D also gains a broad range of published patents covering a significant trove of optical, liquid crystal and light-based technologies.

ApopLogic: Finding Cell Death Drivers
Although many cancer therapeutics ultimately work by instigating events that lead to apoptosis, ApopLogic Pharmaceuticals Inc. believes it can be successful by more directly focusing on the receptors and ligands involved in natural cell death. But rather than studying the apoptotic pathway to find new targets, the company’s first two products work against targets that have traditionally been developed for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. (ApopLogic, a CU-based startup company, was featured in the March 5 edition of BioCentury (subscription required).)

Gilead's New Drug Application for Ambrisentan Receives Priority Review Status
Gilead Sciences, Inc. announced on February 16 that the U.S. FDA has accepted for filing and granted a Priority Review for the company's New Drug Application for marketing approval of ambrisentan (5 mg and 10 mg) for the once-daily treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Priority Review status is assigned to drug products that, if approved, would be a significant improvement compared to marketed products in the treatment, diagnosis or prevention of a disease. The FDA has established a target review date of June 18, 2007. Gilead acquired ambrisentan in its October 2006 acquisition of CU-based Myogen Inc.

Odds Good for Presenters at State Venture-Capital Summit
If previous experience holds true, about two-thirds of the 33 presenting companies at the recent Venture Capital in the Rockies conference will land some amount of venture financing within the next year. That's according to the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association, which hosted the conference that ended February 22. Among the companies that appear positioned to receive financing, according to a spot poll of conference attendees: CU-based ARCA Discovery.

JILA Scientists Have X-Ray Vision
University of Colorado physicists Henry Kapteyn and Margaret Murnane have found a way to create X-ray laser beams with equipment that might fit on a dining room table rather than filling a large building. The discovery could pave the way for the imaging of proteins or human innards with 1,000 times the resolution of today's X-rays, the scientists say, and require a tiny fraction of the power. The work, published online in the journal Nature Physics, was co-authored by CU doctoral students Xiaoshi Zhang, Amy Lytle, Tenio Popmintchev, Xibin Zhou and Oren Cohen, a senior research associate. All work in the Kapteyn/Murnane lab at JILA, the CU-National Institute of Standards and Technology joint institute.

Avigen Technology Highlighted in Special Issue of Neuron Glia Biology
Avigen, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies for the treatment of neurological conditions, announced February 26 that the Cambridge University Press journal Neuron Glia Biology has published online the first article of its special issue about pain, featuring the use of Avigen's product, AV411 (ibudilast), a potential first-in-class oral treatment for the management of chronic neuropathic pain. AV411, based on technology licensed from CU, is in early phase II clinical development in patients with neuropathic pain. (An abstract of the forthcoming article is available here.)

Lung Care Going High-Tech at CU
The University of Colorado Hospital is launching a statewide test program to track the well-being of emphysema patients from the comfort of their own homes. The technology potentially could curb health care costs to treat a condition that affects as many as 460,000 Coloradans. The initial phase of the test showed the electronic monitoring system can save nearly $3,200 per patient over just a 12-week period, largely by alerting health care providers to signs of developing problems before they balloon into larger complications like pneumonia. (Read’s CU’s press release on this project here.)

People

TTO Staff Transitions

• Ken Porter, Director of Licensing, left TTO March 2 to become Associate Vice President for Technology Transfer at the University of Texas, San Antonio. The staff of TTO are sad to see Ken go, but realize this is a great opornty for Ken and wish him the best.
• Jill Penafiel, TTO’s Intellectual Property Manger, will leave TTO March 15 to become Finance and Grants Manager for the Departments of Orthopedics and Physical Medicine/Rehabilitation at UCDHSC. Jill will serve as a liaison between researchers and the Office of Grants and Contracts, assisting researchers pre- and post-grant, and providing information about available grants. Her duties at TTO are currently being handled by Operations Director Kathe Zaslow. The staff at TTO wish Jill the best in her new position, and are glad she’ll be close by.

Buechler Named to Board
Karen Buechler, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of CU-based ALD NanoSolutions, Inc., has been appointed to serve on the Colorado Nanotechnology Alliance (CNA) Board of Directors. The CNA is a not-for-profit corporation with a broad-based Board of Directors that will lead, coordinate and enable partner organizations to complete the action steps necessary to improve Colorado’s competitive position in five target areas: leadership, business growth, research & technology transfer, workforce development and public education & societal change. 

CU Professor and Inventor Honored By National Women's Science Organization
CU-Boulder physics professor Margaret Murnane has been named a Fellow of the Association for Women in Science in recognition of her efforts to recruit, retain and mentor women in the field of physics. As an advocate for women in physics, Murnane has chaired the American Physical Society's Committee on the Status of Women, conducted the Climate for Women in Physics site-visit program and authored the report "Best Practices for Recruiting and Retaining Women in Physics." Murnane and her husband, CU-Boulder physics professor Henry Kapteyn, are known as world leaders in the field of experimental, ultrafast optical science. Their work on short light pulses from lasers has applications for optical technology, faster computer chips and biological and medical imaging.

Do you know of a recent award, new position or transition of interest to the CU tech community? Please send information to TTOnews@cu.edu.

TTO's Learning Laboratory: The Student Connection

TTO Intern’s Business School Team Moves to VC Finals
A team of the graduate business students from the University of Colorado's Leeds School of Business will be moving on to the international finals of the Venture Capital Investment Competition hosted by the University of Southern California after winning the regional competition. It is the third consecutive CU win at the regional level. Students Rich Barone, Franco Valdes, Christine Brandt, Charlie Kelley (TTO’s spring MBA intern) and Dagan White won unanimous choice for regional first place. They will compete April 12-14 in North Carolina.

TTO Seeking Spring Patent Intern
The TTO is seeking a qualified student to assist our staff in performing prior art, freedom to operate and patentability searches for biotechnology inventions. Applicants should have either an undergraduate or graduate degree in one of the biological sciences, or previous experience in IP law, particularly the areas outlined above. Applicant must be a CU student, and willing to work at the UCDHSC campus in Aurora. For more information or to submit your resume and cover letter, contact David Poticha at david.poticha@cu.edu.

Spotlight On:

CU Boulder Technology of the Month:
CU1486B – Hoverbird Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

UCDHSC Technology of the Month:
CU1156H – Shape Memory Polymer and Bioresorbable Polymer Electrodes

Upcoming Events

CBSA Seminar: NIH SBIR/STTR Funding
March 20, 2007, 1pm, Lory Student Center at CSU, Fort Collins
In this free seminar presented by the Colorado Bioscience Association (CBSA), Dr. Greg Milman will speak at CSU and provide Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs training, followed by a question and answer session. Gregory Milman, Ph.D., is Director of the Office for Innovation and Special Programs in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He manages NIAID $100 million small business programs and promotes NIAID biodefense opportunities. RSVP online. Dr. Milman will also speak at the CBSA BioBreakfast on March 21 (free for CBSA members).

2nd CU-NIST Research Symposium and Seed Grant Announcement
March 22, 2007, University Memorial Center, Boulder
The University of Colorado and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will host its second Research Symposium, which is intended to foster new collaborations between the institutions. Biotechnology and nanotechnology are important focus areas, but poster presentations are encouraged in a wide range of disciplines. A small number of seed grants to support new collaborations between NIST and CU scientists will be funded by the two institutions; eligibility for the seed grants requires presentation of a poster at the Symposium. The deadline for the seed grant applications will be April 18, 2007. More information about the seed grants is available online, or by emailing stein.sture@colorado.edu.

The Future of Colorado Universities: Setting the Stage for College Education in the Future
April 2, 2007, 6:30pm, CB & Potts, Westminster
As CU President Hank Brown sets the stage for his departure in 2008, he is also setting the stage for how the university system will operate in Colorado for years to come.  Join the DaVinci Institute at their monthly “Night with a Futurist” event as President Brown discusses his vision both for Colorado and the future university system. The DaVinci Institute has been producing "A Night with a Futurist" since 2002. Each month a well-known visionary leads the discussion on some aspect of the future world that we are creating. These events are designed to be discussions, so feel free to make your voices heard. Online registration required.

New Technology Meet-up Group
April 3, 2007, 6pm, Wolf Law Building, Boulder
During the Boulder/Denver New Technology Meet-up Group, sponsored by the Silicon Flatirons Telecommunications Program, 5 people get 5 minutes each to demo something cool (typically IT-related) to Colorado's tech community (geeks, investors, entrepreneurs, hackers, etc).  The event is held the first Tuesday of every month at the same time and place, with refreshments served before and after.

SFTP: Law and Entrepreneurship: The Art of the Deal, Regional Differences in Representing Growth Companies
April 9, 2007, 3pm, Wolf Law Building, Boulder
The entrepreneurial spirit knows no geographic boundaries. But the founders, managers, and the lawyers who advise them operate in vastly different atmospheres. Innovation depends on multiple actors, including law firms, venture capital funds, universities, and other institutions. The aim of the conference, hosted by the Silicon Flatirons Telecommunications Program, is to explore questions of regional differences from descriptive, theoretical, and practical perspectives. Free for CU students/faculty/staff; more information available online.

National Space Symposium
April 9-12, 2007, Broadmoor Hotel, Colorado Springs
The National Space Symposium (in its 23rd year) is the premier U.S. policy and program forum, a "must attend" opportunity for information and interaction on all sectors of space - civil, commercial, and national security. The conference will be held April 9 - 12, 2007 at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. The conference is attended by industry leaders, military and government officials and general space enthusiasts, and covered locally and nationally by broadcast, print and industry trade media. Information and registration online.

TTO Seminar: Patenting Medical Technology
April 11, 2007, Research Complex 1, Health Sciences Center, Aurora
The TTO and Hensley Kim & Edgington, LLC present this free lunch-hour seminar, which will cover the patent process for research in medicine and medical devices. Dr. Robin Shandas, faculty entrepreneur and winner of TTO’s 2006 Inventor of the Year award, will speak about his experiences with the patent process. Attorneys from HKE will discuss differences between writing for publication and drafting patent claims, and ways to leverage existing academic papers into patents.

Rocky Mountain SBIR Conference
May 9-10, 2007, Renaissance Hotel, Denver
The Rocky Mountain SBIR Conference provides 2 full days of SBIR/STTR courses & information. Learn critical IP and marketing strategies, meet one-on-one with program managers, network with large corporate sponsors, and collaborate with industry clusters and neighboring state technologists. Get the latest details by emailing info@sbircolorado.org.

BioBootcamp 2007: Building Life Science Businesses
June 28-29, 2007, Holland & Hart, Denver
Attendees will learn valuable information from experienced practitioners about how to build a company designed to commercialize bioscience technologies while avoiding dangerous pitfalls that are typically encountered along the way. This CBSA-sponsored program is free and open to investors, professionals and entrepreneurs in the bioscience industry. Information and application available online

To have your event featured here, please send an email to TTOnews@cu.edu.

CU Resources

New Digs for Colorado Springs Technology Incubator
The Colorado Springs Technology Incubator (CSTI) helps to launch high-technology companies in the greater Colorado Springs area, through business advice, office facilities and access to educational resources. Opened in 2001, CSTI will soon move into a new 23,000 square-foot facility which it purchased in December. Upgrading from its 4,000 square-foot building on Austin Bluffs Parkway, CSTI will provide office space for high-tech companies working in homeland security and defense. UCCS, a partner on the project, says the incubator will keep its smaller facility to continue to provide space for startups in other industries.

For more information, visit CSTI online or view these articles about the transition:

• More Space to Hatch Startups
• Tech Incubator Putting Final Touches on New Site

Innovation in the News

Boulder Ranked First for Private Equity Deals Among US Secondary Cities
A recent study published by the Federal Bank of Boston argues that secondary cities can adopt certain strategies to successfully lure venture investment to their region. Authors Carole Carlson and Prabal Chakrabarti examine the venture market in the secondary cities of New England to identify factors that have led to success outside of the Boston-Route 128 area. New England represents a particularly important region for study, since six of the top 10 secondary venture markets are located in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The authors interviewed executives from 17 regional and national firms comprising more than one-half of the top 10 investors in secondary markets and 53 companies in these markets that recently had secured venture funding.

The 10 highest-performing secondary cities in the U.S. (ranked by number of private equity deals per city) are (1) Boulder, Colo., (2) Salt Lake City, (3) Westborough, Mass., (4) Ann Arbor, Mich., (5) Norwalk, Conn., (6) Providence, R.I., (7) Southborough, Mass., (8) Stamford, Conn., (9) Melbourne, Fla., and (10) New Haven, Conn. Read “Venture Capital in New England Secondary Cities”  at http://www.bos.frb.org/commdev/necd/2007/issue1/venturecap.pdf.

Open Call From the Patent Office
The government is about to start opening up the process of reviewing patents to the modern font of wisdom: the Internet. The Patent and Trademark Office is starting a pilot project that will not only post patent applications on the Web and invite comments but also use a community rating system designed to push the most respected comments to the top of the file, for serious consideration by the agency's examiners. A first for the federal government, the system resembles the one used by Wikipedia, the popular user-created online encyclopedia.

Universities, NREL Team to Land Renewable Energy Work
The state’s top politicians as well as academic and renewable-energy leaders signed the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory agreement in the Capitol building on February 21, formalizing an effort they say is key to Colorado’s future as a national renewable-energy hub. The Collaboratory teams up the University of Colorado, Colorado State University, the Colorado School of Mines Golden’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. It has no mailing address, but rather is designed to pool the state’s top research institutions with NREL in an effort to compete for increasingly coveted renewable-energy initiatives on the national stage. (View CU’s press release here.)

Coloradans Part of New Venture Capital Group
Venture capitalists in Colorado are teaming with VCs from seven neighboring states to form the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association. The move, which backers hope will give the region more national clout, means the Colorado Venture Capital Association will dissolve to join the new group. The new group will have offices in Denver and comprise venture capitalists from Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Nevada.

Venture Capitalists Eye Cleantech Firms
Deep-pocketed venture capitalists gathering at the 2007 Venture Capital in the Rockies conference in Beaver Creek said they are eyeing "clean technology" companies as a new place to invest their cash and that Colorado offers good opportunities. Such technology includes everything from solar energy and alternative fuels to recycling as well as newfangled battery systems. "It's something we want to explore. It has a presence in Colorado," said Dan Mitchell, a partner with Sequel Venture Partners in Boulder. Gov. Bill Ritter has touted renewable energy as a top priority for his administration.

Science Adviser Says That Pruning Is the Key to a Healthy Budget
The U.S. science community needs to figure out how to live within its means, says John Marburger, science adviser to President George W. Bush. In particular, he believes biomedical scientists need to curb their appetite for federal funding and space scientists must learn to turn off a mission before building and launching a new one. Science Magazine article.

Pennsylvania Governor Unveils $850M Clean Energy Fund
In February Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell announced a broad state strategy to improve the state’s energy independence, support alternative energy business, and reduce the state’s environmental impact. The key element of the new state plan is an $850 million Energy Independence Fund, designed to reduce energy costs for consumers and shift the state’s usage toward clean and renewable sources. Clean energy entrepreneurs and businesses in the state will receive new support through the fund’s venture investments.  

Texas Governor Wants $300M Boost for Emerging Technology Fund
Texas Gov. Rick Perry unveiled his budget proposal for fiscal year 2008-09 with an additional $300 million to recapitalize the state’s Emerging Technology Fund (ETF). The program provides loans and grants to commercialization projects with ties to state universities, and to create research centers in key technology areas. The funding would represent a significant expansion of the program, which received $200 million when it was established in 2005 and no new funding in 2006. Another program, the Texas Enterprise Fund, would receive $182 million to continue its activities. The Enterprise Fund was the predecessor of the ETF and was created in 2003 to attract larger employers to the state.

Top Countries Shuffle Spots for Most Patents
Rapid growth in the number of international patents filed by northeast Asian nations during 2006 has resulted in a shift of positions for the top-performing nations, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). With 34.1 percent, the U.S. maintained its global dominance with 49,555 patent filings. The figure represents an increase of 6.1 percent over America’s 2005 total; the U.S. rate of growth is slower than the 6.4 percent growth in total world filings. Japan, maintaining its second place position, filed 26,906 patent applications, 18.5 percent of the global total of 145,300. Germany remained in third with 11.7 percent of the total.
More information, including the breakdown by technology sector, is available online.

External Resources

Recommended Rules of Engagement for University Tech Transfer
Leading universities and the American Association of Medical Colleges issued a white paper on points to consider in licensing university technology.  As much as the paper does not specify any new practices, it does explain the rationale and provide legal language for some important contemporary licensing considerations.   The University of Colorado TTO supports these points and encourages other technology transfer licensing offices to do so as well. The 17-page white paper, In the Public Interest: Nine Points to Consider in Licensing University Technology, is available as a PDF at: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/march7/gifs/whitepaper.pdf.

Colorado Maintains High Rankings
Colorado continued to rank highly compared to other states in a series of recently released reports:

• 9th in New Economy Development
  The 2007 State New Economy Index, released by the Kauffman Foundation and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), uses 26 indicators from a variety of sources to rank each state on the extent to which their economies are structured and operate to effectively compete regionally as well as globally. It examines the degree to which state economies are knowledge-based, globalized, entrepreneurial, information technology-driven and innovation-based. Overall Colorado ranked 9th; areas of strength included workforce education, number of IPO’s, entrepreneurial activity and patents, with Colorado ranking 2nd in all these areas. Colorado’s lowest ranking (44th) was in Technology in Schools.
• 4th in SBIR awards by State, FY 2005
  The State Science & Technology Institute (SSTI) has compiled a table that presents FY 2005 Phase I SBIR data for all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. Statistics show awards, proposals and award-to-proposal conversion rates from 10 of the 12 participating agencies. Colorado ranked 4th in FY2005 awards, with 205. The table is available at: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/022607t.htm .

Calling All Campers: Technology Gatherings Come to Boulder
Imagine a free technology conference with no rules or regulations — an informal setting where attendees choose the salient topics, business plans can be scrutinized and information exchanged. Such is BarCampBoulder, a recent addition to a worldwide technology community attracting a self-selecting audience with interests ranging from blogging and online marketing to more esoteric aspects of the Internet.

Fed Considers Connection between Universities, Economic Growth
How best to incorporate universities into regional tech-based economic development strategies without compromising core missions is an art not every community has mastered. The issue has captured the attention of the Federal Reserve -- in October and November of 2006, the Federal Banks of Chicago and Cleveland each hosted two-day conversations about the rich, diverse roles universities play in regional development, and how these institutions can nurture industry clusters. Use the article link above to view more details about these conferences. (One interesting presentation form the Cleveland conference, an analysis on increasing invention disclosures, is available at http://www.clevelandfed.org/Research/EdConf2006/ppt/Feldman%20Cleveland%20Fed%20-%20November%2016.ppt.)

Study Questions the Success of Bayh-Dole Approach to University Patenting
Over the past 27 years, the Bayh-Dole Act has been frequently cited as critical for university tech transfer in the U.S., and similar approaches are gaining favor across Europe, where university ownership of patents has been far less common. In a new report from the University of Sussex, University IPRs and Knowledge Transfer: Is the IPR Ownership Model More Efficient? (PDF file), Bart Verspagen of the Eindhoven University of Technology and Gustavo Crespi and Aldo Geuna of the University of Sussex examine the efficiency of both the U.S. and the European model in commercializing university-based patents, and conclude there is no great need for Bayh-Dole-like legislation in Europe to improve patenting performance.

Tech-Transfer Community Must Educate 'Misinformed' Critics, Former Senator Says
Citing “warning clouds on the horizon” that threaten a bill that has helped give rise to modern academic technology transfer, former US Senator Birch Bayh last week urged members of the Association of University Technology Managers to refute recent criticisms of the legislation and educate “misinformed” opponents. He also called on the tech-transfer community to closely examine why research dollars from US-based industries are more frequently being used to fund research at foreign institutions. Bayh co-sponsored the Bayh-Dole act, which was enacted by Congress in 1980. The act gave US universities and non-profit research institutes control of inventions resulting from federally funded research, and essentially launched the tech transfer sector.

Council on Competitiveness: Status of U.S. Entrepreneurship
America’s laurels for its record of innovation and entrepreneurship are great but there is no time to rest on those past accomplishments given the changing global economy, a recent paper by the Council on Competitiveness concludes. Where America Stands: Entrepreneurship (PDF) draws from dozens of other research papers, studies and articles to provide an overview of the current entrepreneurial climate in the U.S.

Parting Quotes