A bedtime story...

Let's have a little story time....

Once upon a time there was a research university in a town that was struggling. Like many towns across the United States, it was losing its manufacturing base and this resulted in lots of flapping jaws about "revitalization" and "biotechnology" and a "new economy."

Now, at this research university there is a senior research administrator who kinda enjoyed being the center of attention. Twenty years previously, the President of the local Chamber of Commerce wouldn't have known his name, but now that all the "old economy" companies have closed down, the research university is one of the only shows in town. The administrator really likes it when he is treated like he could be some sort of savior. He is speaking at meetings, invited to all the power-broker lunches and is always included in the good foursomes at the country club.

There is only one problem: The town doesn't have a very good idea of what the research university does. They hear the word "biotechnology", but what does that mean? Who are these scientists? What kinds of diseases are they curing and when will it happen? How will this translate into jobs?

So, the research administrator devises a cunning plan: He will convince the town to host a "technology expo"! All local technology businesses and the other (smaller) universities will be invited to participate, BUT the lion's share of the content will come from the research university. Since the research administrator is the face of the research university for economic development purposes, it will appear as if the research administrator himself is bringing copious gifts of technology to the community and they will praise him! Imagine the social climbing that will occur when more people realize how important this research administrator truly is!

The word is spread throughout the labs of the research university, "Hark! We are having a technology expo! Come and present your research to an adoring public!" And the scientists responded with great enthusiasm. Posters were printed, presentations were prepared and the research administrator bought himself a new suit to look spiffy at the expo.

When the day of the expo rolled around, something strange happened: No one came! For truth, the only people wandering the exhibit halls were those already deeply involved in "economic development", but very few people attended who had not already drunk deeply of the research administrator's Kool-Aid.

Perhaps the expo just needed more time to build a following, so the town threw a similar technology expo again in 2 years time and AGAIN 2 years after that. However, this final time, the scientists were less interested in presenting their research to a general public that did not seem to be interested.

The research administrator brow-beat the scientists until they agreed to attend and the research administrator was happy. Finally, this year the community would recognize his value! However, when the research administrator saw the materials that the scientists wished to present he shouted, "No, no! This will not do! This is the research you presented last time, you must present something new!"

Now, biomedical research just doesn't move that fast. Most scientists don't have wholly new concepts to present every two years. Yet....having been thoroughly demoralized by the research administrator, the scientists relented and agreed to present research ideas that they had barely begun to conceptualize. "Maybe he'll shut up if we do this?", they thought.

The more astute readers will note that this public unveiling of mere research concepts could have disastrous effects on the ability to patent and later commercialize these inventions. The research university did have an intrepid technology transfer office which voiced lots of concerns, but they were powerless to stop this foolish unveiling of so many inventions before they were ripe. The research administrator had just THAT much political mojo, so the technology transfer office did the best they could and filed a record number of provisional patent applications on these mere concepts.

Once again, the technology expo was a failure. Nobody came because nobody cared. The public is interested in science, but trying to draw a connection between a conceptual idea and a job that can employ members of the public is just too difficult. So, the group saddled with planning these technology expos decided to call it a day and never to speak of their involvement in this colossal waste of time ever again.

The research administrator was full of wrath. The hicks in this stupid town didn't appreciate him and he felt that the scientists hadn't fully supported his desire to be politically powerful in the community. But, he showed them who was boss when he accepted a new position at another research university a couple years later.

No one in the community mourned his departure.

This could be the end of the story, but some interesting things happened in the research university's technology transfer office. For one thing, they received relatively few inventions for several years after the final technology expo. Why would this be?

Of course, the reason was that those inventions were exposed to the public as mere concepts several years prior at the technology expo. In the absence of the expo, those technologies would have matured under the scientist's watchful eyes for several more years before being disclosed to the public and the technology transfer office.

No big deal, you say? Didn't the university file provisional patent applications on those concepts that were disclosed at the expo? Well...that's a funny thing. The university did file patent applications, but because those ideas were merely concepts at the time, there simply wasn't enough information to file a GOOD patent application. So, over the years most of these patent applications struggled mightily under the harsh examination of the US Patent and Trademark Office. "No data" tends to mean "no patent" and that unfortunate fate met many of these concepts.

And where the chickens really come home to roost is when the university tries to determine why they have a 5 year window of time where they have few inventions that could potentially produce revenue. There are things in the pipeline from before the technology expos and there are many things appearing ~6 years thereafter, but the immediately following 5 years are a wasteland.

Lessons of the story

1). Pardon my language, but technology commercialization is incredibly easy to fuck up. And when you do fuck it up, you will live with those bad decisions for a decade or more. And there is no way to fix it retroactively. Technology commercialization is a very unique skill and not one that is widespread. It is best left to the professionals.

2). The allure of local economic development can cause men and women to do strange things. From a perception standpoint, few things are sexier than start-up technology companies and some people would very much like to be seen as the purveyor of the sexy start-up companies.

3). If a university engages in economic activities without the full involvement of their technology transfer professionals, that university is behaving foolishly. You can really fuck this stuff up if there is no one at the table who works on a daily basis with patents and the licensing of patents. Sometimes it is attractive to exclude the technology transfer folks because they keep pointing out uncomfortable truths (such as the Emperor's nudity), but that doesn't make them wrong.

- Dean Stell