Category: Technology Transfer

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Unhappy with the lack of inventions coming out of your R&D expenditures?  What to do next can be a complex issue.  Depending on the importance of inventions driving current and future business, re-starting the Invention Machine can be table stakes for many organizations and or careers.

Re-starting the Invention Machine within your organization can involve numerous challenges. We’ll explore a few popular choices for creating positive change in this blog post.  Check back as we will likely revisit this popular topic with additional thoughts and posts in the future.  Future reader comments are another excellent supplement to the original blog.

Often, management believes it is a leadership challenge.  Changing leadership tends to send a signal to the rank and file.  Unfortunately, often the message that each person hears isn’t the same message. This can lead to unclear objectives, actions, and sometimes fear.

Fear, when channeled, can be a motivator.  Imagine a new R&D leader coming into a role where the organization inventive pipeline has dried up.  A leadership mandate that he/she expects at least one inventive idea per: [group, employee, project, $1 million spend, etc.] can re-start inventive reporting.  This is useful, even if it is just to remind people about the reporting process and a refresher on how to execute the steps required.  It isn’t necessarily tied to great inventions as people will tend to report anything/everything to stay off the radar.

Fear is not a long-term solution, but rather a way to prime the pump for a re-start.  Motivation is the key to sustainable success to keep the Invention Machine churning.  People inherently are happier when they are contributing so it is important to develop a culture where they can contribute easily and then see the positive impact on them personally.

• Does your organization push technology boundaries?
• Do you “punish” risk takers when they aren’t successful?
• Do you celebrate success?
• What other aspects of your organization either impede or positively contribute to a culture where inventive attitudes flourish?

Imagine the shift in perspectives when that same new R&D leader who shifts from “I expect new ideas from everyone,” to “I will tangibly reward people who contribute inventions.”  This could take many forms including performance appraisals, promotions, recognition, restricted stock grants etc.

Other aspects of the culture change should be aimed at making the reporting process less cumbersome.

• Do you have a defined process?
• Is it simple and flexible?
• Have employees been trained?

If you said “no” to any of these, it will be more difficult to achieve motivation goals.

Motivation can also be influenced by recognition and or reward programs.   Organizations who pride themselves on the number of annual patents (IBM is one example) give a great deal of weight to financial reward for patented inventions.  Recognition programs structured with some financial and other non-financial rewards are also prevalent though out most industries. A well-thought-out program usually recognizes new inventors and frequent contributors differently to provide proper stimulus for continued motivation.

Often the status quo is in the way of progress. Complacency, lack of time or direction, or a desire not to perturb the troops can inhibit change.  However, done properly change will improve morale (along with getting the Invention Machine supercharged).

Albert Einstein once said, “no problem can be solved from the same state of consciousness that created it.”  The Dawnbreaker team can help organizations struggling with these issues by providing a fresh and objective perspective. We have a data-driven process to identify critical change drivers that will be most effective within an organization. Contact us to kick off a discussion on jumpstarting your Invention Machine!

Posted December 17, 2018 by Jenny Servo, P.H. D 

Background:

Multiple laws and regulations have directed federal agencies and laboratories to encourage commercial use of their inventions through many channels, including out-licensing patents to private sector companies that aim to commercialize products or services developed from the patented technology.^[1]  However,  a 2013 Office of Science and Technology Policy report raised concerns that only a small portion of the inventions arising from government research have been commercialized by the private sector, and that the United States is potentially missing critical opportunities to improve the nation’s standard of living, create new jobs, maintain international competitiveness, and enhance the overall economy, among other things.[2]  In light of this report and others, Congress requested that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) “review agency practices for managing intellectual property developed at federal labs, with a particular focus on the licensing of patented inventions to non-federal parties.“[3]

For the purposes of this report, the GAO focused on the four federal agencies with the largest research and development (R&D) budgets – the Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Energy (DOE),  National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and, the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Together, these agencies account for more than 90% of total federal R&D spending.   The review and resulting report “examined, for DOD, DOE, NASA, and NIH and their labs, (1) the challenges that federal labs face in patent licensing, steps taken to address those challenges, and the extent to which NIST has reported them and (2) the extent to which federal agencies and labs have information on processes, goals, and comparable licenses to guide establishing patent license financial terms.”[4] The performance audit lasted from June 2016 through June 2018.

Methods:

GAO reviewed relevant literature, laws, and agency documents, including patent licenses from DoD, DOE, NASA and NIH, through 2014. They interviewed agency officials from these organizations as well as nine of their laboratories.  GAO also interviewed external stakeholders including academic researchers, partnership intermediaries, industry representatives, professional trade organizations and universities.[5]

Conclusions:

The results of the GAO’s review of state of federal agency patent licensing efficacy is summarized below:[6]

• Ensuring that researchers identify and disclose inventions is a government-wide challenge.
• DOE, DOD, NASA, and NIH documentation does not consistently link establishing financial terms in patent licenses to the statutory goal of promoting commercial use.
• Federal labs have varying amounts of information on comparable government licenses when establishing financial terms. However, there is no formal sharing of information on financial terms in patent licenses among federal labs.
• To establish financial terms, DOD, DOE, NASA, and NIH labs rely on the expertise of their technology transfer staff and take a number of steps to build and share expertise but had limited documentation of their processes for establishing the financial terms of patent licenses.

Recommendations:

GAO made seven recommendations to improve the out-licensing process of federal patents for commercialization by private industry.  They are:[7]

• The Secretary of Commerce should instruct NIST to fully report the range of challenges in federal patent licensing, such as those outlined in this report, by, for example, leveraging its survey of practices at federal technology transfer offices, past FLC studies, and agency reports and including that information in its summary reports to Congress. (Recommendation 1) 
• The Secretary of Commerce should instruct NIST to clarify the link between establishing patent license financial terms and the goal of promoting commercial use, through appropriate means, such as the upcoming rule-making process and updating relevant guidance. (Recommendation 2)
• The Secretary of Commerce should instruct NIST to facilitate formal information sharing among the agencies to provide federal labs with information on financial terms in comparable patent licenses, as appropriate. (Recommendation 3)
• The Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Energy, Administrator of NASA and the Director of the NIH should ensure that their respective agencies or its labs document processes for establishing license financial terms, while maintaining flexibility to tailor the specific financial terms of each license. (Recommendations 4 – 7)

Outcomes: 

The Secretary of Commerce agreed to implement Recommendations 1 – 3.  The Secretary of Defense agreed to implement Recommendation 4.  The Secretary of Energy agreed to implement Recommendation 5.  The Director of the NIH agreed to implement Recommendation 7.  The Administrator of NASA only partially agreed to implement Recommendation 6, noting the “complexity and nuances associated with negotiating licensing agreements, such as understanding the market for the technology and the risk involved” would make standardizing procedures difficult.[8]

Note, the entire report, entitled  Federal Research – Additional Actions Needed to Improve Licensing of Patented Laboratory Inventions (GAO-18-327) can be found at https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/692606.pdf

[1] These include the Stevenson-Wydler Act of 1980, the Bayh Dole Act of 1980 and the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986

[2] 3White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Institutes of Health, White House Lab-to-Market Inter-Agency Summit: Recommendations from the National Expert Panel (Washington, D.C.: May 20, 2013). https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU%20Files/Key%20Issues/Research%20Administration%20%26%20Regulation/WH-L2MSummit-Recommendations-FINAL-Aug-09-2013-2.pdf

[3]General Accountability Office, Federal Research, Additional Actions Needed to Improve Licensing of Patented Laboratory Inventions – GAO-18-327, page 4, June 2018. https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/692606.pdf

[4] General Accountability Office, page 4.

[5] ibid, page 5.

[6] Ibid, pages 33 and 34

[7] Ibid, pages 34 and 34

[8] Ibid. page 36

Posted December 11, 2018 by Rich Smerbeck