The staff also evaluated 104 new inventions and filed 109 U.S. and foreign patent applications last year. The process begins when a faculty member contacts the office about a research finding and the University decides to take title. But the major question is whether a breakthrough would meet a need in the marketplace. They have a sense of what diagnostics, pharmaceutical, electronics and communications companies are looking for today. Through extensive research and networking, the center tries to match an invention with a company so licensing can begin.
Companies also learn about new technologies from scientific meetings or journals.
Most of the University's inventions are not directly useful to the general public, however. They are more likely to provide companies with tools to develop their own products. For example, Glaxo Wellcome is using a mouse model of prostate cancer developed by Jeffrey I. Gordon, M.D., the Alumni Professor and head of molecular biology and pharmacology and professor of medicine, to look for potential prostate cancer drugs. Once a technology is licensed, the inventor or inventors receive 45 percent of the annual income after expenses have been met. An additional 15 percent feeds back into the tech transfer program, and the rest is divided among the faculty member's lab, department and dean.