To: All Faculty <everybody@illinois.edu> 
    From: "Paul W. Bohn" <bohn@aries.scs.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: wisehart@uiuc.edu

 Subject: MASSMAIL - Office of Technology Management Backlog

Dear Colleagues,

	Technology transfer at UIUC is badly broken, and we are determined 
that it not remain so.  Thus, I am writing to report to you on the steps we 
are taking to create the effective, timely and successful technology 
transfer process that you and our students deserve.  

        First, it was critical to establish effective leadership.  We were 
fortunate to attract Michael Fritz, former president and CEO of the Carle 
Foundation and current chairman of the C-U Economic Development Corporation 
as Interim Director of our Office of Technology Management (OTM).  As we 
looked closely at intellectual property management at UIUC it was clear 
that we were a victim of our own success: hundreds of disclosures to OTM 
tell a story of productive, creative, energetic researchers with good 
ideas, many with direct commercial application and potential copyright and 
license opportunities.  However, because we did not manage IP effectively, 
the volume of unassessed technologies grew; the office became paralyzed; 
and many of you lost confidence.  Clearly, aggressive action was called 
for, both to eliminate the existing backlog and to implement a system to 
prevent this kind of bottlenecking from occurring again.  A two-pronged 
approach was devised.

	To address the backlog a team of graduate students, working in 
concert with Deloitte and Touche, has sorted and catalogued our 
technologies.  After reorganizing all the documentation and assembling 
marketing, patent and industry information, a first level screening of the 
potential commercial value was made for each invention.  It was then 
forwarded to a panel of industry experts, who then made a detailed 
assessment and recommendation for potential commercialization.  Now that 
the screening and priority-setting is finished, we will aggressively pursue 
those technologies that have significant commercial potential.  We will 
assess, market, and license the technologies or, when appropriate, 
facilitate faculty entrepreneurs in establishing start-up companies.  For 
technologies that have moderate potential value, we will pursue passive 
marketing strategies.  Importantly, we will communicate the status of each 
technology disclosure promptly to each inventor.  The initial phase of this 
work (assessment by industry experts) is complete, and I am pleased to 
report that there appears to be a great deal of value in our (your) 
intellectual property portfolio.

	The second effort is a full reorganization of the OTM, including 
significantly increased staff and other resources.  We will decentralize 
the work by placing professionals with expertise in technology 
commercialization and business development directly in the most active 
colleges and departments and supporting them with legal IP and business 
experts in a central office.  Additionally, OTM is developing connections 
to outside experts who will assist with evaluation and commercialization on 
an ongoing basis.  Our goal is to decentralize OTM in order to make it more 
accessible, efficient, accountable and service-oriented.

	Make no mistake.  Much work remains to achieve our goal of 
transforming the OTM into a premier IP management organization.  As we work 
toward that goal you can expect to remain fully informed of our progress, 
and we know we can count on you to let us know how we can do better.

                                Sincerely,
                                Paul W. Bohn
                                Interim Vice Chancellor for Research


This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research

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