Technology Transfer Organizations

The main reason to establish a TTO is to move innovations from the lab to society and the marketplace to advance the impact of research results on people’s lives. TTOs can be financially sound in the long term: experience has shown that a period of eight to ten years is needed before a TTO can generate sufficient income to sustain its operating costs, and provide a dividend. Therefore, financial support from the government and relevant institutions is required in the interim period.

The roles of Technology Transfer Offices in IP Management

From an IP management point of view, a TTO should have the following functions:

• Promotion of IP awareness among the institution’s staff members;
• Management of IP disclosure;
• Filing for IP protection;
• Commercialization: (i) Marketing, negotiation and licensing; and (ii) Creation of spin-outs;
• Maintenance of IP assets;
• Enforcement of IPRs;
• Management of revenue sharing;
• Management of conflict of interest and commitments.

Other functions of Technology Transfer Offices

Where financial sustainability is a key objective, some TTOs may also be involved in the following areas:

• Management of consultancy services offered by the institutions;
• Marketing of short courses and related capacity building programs offered by the institutions;
• Management of contract research and related projects;
• Marketing other capacities of the institutions, such as laboratory services;
• Any other income-generating activities identified by the institutions.

A TTO must be economically viable in terms of results and impact. The following benchmarking indicators are typically used to evaluate the performance of TTOs:

• The number of IP disclosures;
• The number of IP applications;
• The number of grants;
• The number of licensing contracts;
• The licensing revenue;
• The number of start-up companies;
• The number of joint ventures.

TTOs can take various forms. While most universities and research institutions have an internal TTO, some have opted for a different organizational structure, which may better fit their local needs and resources. These can be:

• Wholly-owned subsidiary company (an external company which is 100% owned by the university or research institution);
• Private IP service provider;
• IP management consortium;
• Government office serving as TTO.

One of the main reasons for using external or joint TTOs is that individual universities may not generate sufficient work to justify the creation of a specialized office with skilled human resources. Nevertheless, the benefit of having a TTO within the university itself is that it enables more direct interactions with the researchers and can prevent situations of institutional mistrust when the office is shared with other institutions.