Startup Labs - Lab 7 - IP Strategy and Management

Term: Fall 2023

Date: October 24th, 2023

Time: 12:00pm - 1:00pm

Location: Online Only

Instructor: Mark Mondry

Presented By: Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation (OVPRI)

Description:

Course will meet on the above date, but will remain open for two weeks after for information and the recorded session.

Welcome to our last LAUNCH Startup Labs last lab session!

Our journey has covered many topics and considerations.  In this session, we circle back to intellectual property - where we started in our translation of technology from research discussion.

As a result of Federal Law, specifically the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, research universities have an obligation to build organizational capacities (LICENSE & LAUNCH) that can identify and capture technologies and associated intellectual property that emerge from federally funded university research and try to propel them into the market where they can provide economic and societal impact. The propelling effort occurs through licensing the technologies out to startups and mature organizations seeking to further invest in the technology to translate it into a commercially viable product or service (see, last Lab on new product development).  In the case of a startup from university labs (often called a "spin-out" from the university), the new venture searches for a viable business model and works to attract resources to enable it develop the early stage technology into a valuable product or service that customers want to buy.

It is the intellectual property that formed the seed of opportunity.  If the new technology emerging from academic research can be patented, then there is the potential for a proprietary position that justifies the high risk in investing to develop it and launch it into the market.  Thus, IP becomes a strategic component of the new business, and startup founders treat it as a strategic asset.

This includes building out an IP portfolio of patents, trademarks, copyrights on software, and perhaps trade secrets to capture new value created as the product or service is developed and ultimately marketed. We will discuss how the process unfolds after a university spin-out is created and how the spin-out can leverage IP portfolios as "currency" to enable transactions between business enterprises, including funding mechanisms.

This session will also provide a short look-back on our Startup Labs journey to enable you to leverage our discussions into framing new entrepreneurial spin-out opportunities from your research in the future.