Oregon State University
By Kate McPherron
Oregon State University’s
Office of Technology Transfer
(OTT) supports research development and commercialization of OSU intellectual property, serving as a bridge between researchers and business. OTT has helped dozens of Oregon-based startups, as well as large, international companies though its focus on the protection and transfer of intellectual property through license, confidentiality and material transfer agreements.
“The office is charged with a variety of functions,” says Brian Wall, director of the Office of Technology Transfer at OSU. “One primary goal is to identify research that we believe needs appropriate intellectual property protection in order for it to truly impact society. That function serves both companies seeking to license our technologies, as well as innovators and their start-ups.”
“One primary goal is to identify research that we believe needs appropriate intellectual property protection in order for it to truly impact society."
Bioscience is a growing area of innovation
Although bioscience currently only reflects a small fraction of the available OSU innovations, OSU sees this area growing. “With greater national attention on healthcare and the demand for innovative, effective solutions to health issues, there is clearly a ready market,” says Wall. “That fits very well with OSU’s strategic focus on advancing the science of sustainable earth ecosystems; improving human health and wellness; and promoting economic growth and social progress.” Currently, OSU offers bioscience innovations pertaining to diagnostics, imaging, medical devices, therapeutics, vaccines, and more.
Measuring results may be counter-productive
Wall stresses that too much emphasis on metrics upsets the whole purpose of tech transfer, which is to support research efforts. “Metrics tend to turn the focus toward financial results, and that’s not the primary purpose of our office. The picture is much more complicated than metrics can usually show. We want to foster innovation, which means we take risks and tolerate less-than-optimal results, or even failure. A pure financial business model may ultimately stifle innovation because it does not permit a level of failure and non-financial successes including real-world learning opportunities for students, creating an entrepreneurial climate, and increasing public-private collaboration.”
Kate McPherron provides strategic communications consulting to organizations in bioscience, energy efficiency, engineering and high tech. Kate’s history includes running successful low-budget, tight-deadline product launches and company introductions; ongoing product/PR management; as well as writing and coordinating documentation projects for large, regulated companies. Key to Kate’s work is unearthing, defending and persuading a viewpoint, often communicating technical information to a less-savvy audience. Contact Kate at kmcpherron@gmail.com