Technology transfer is big business for universities. Really big business. According to the Association of University Technology Managers’ (AUTM) 2015 survey, US universities formed over 1000 new ventures, and "new and existing licensed products generated $29 billion in product sales" (1).
The list of leaders in this week's patent publication data includes some familiar schools, but also some surprises:
No surprise to see the University of California and Stanford at the top of the list. They are very much the IBMs of the academic patent world.
But the University of Florida comes in tied for third with publications in biotech (US Patent Publication 2021/000040487), medicine (US Patent Publication 2021/000038551) and nanotechnology (US Patent Publication 2021/000041367). Oregon State's Electrical Engineering program is world-renowned, but their patent publications from this week include a couple for water desalination and purification (US Patent Publications 2021/000039008 and 2021/000039009) .
And kudos to the researchers of Pittsburgh, PA. Two schools in the top ten. Well done.
Is your school on the list? If not, they may be missing out on a big revenue stream in the future.
(1) -- Mack Institute, University of Pennslyvania, "Benchmarking U.S. University Technology Commercialization Efforts: A New Approach", https://mackinstitute.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/FP0357b_WP_2019Jan.pdf
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