While Carolina's current Office of Technology Development is fairly new, many changes have made OTD more user-friendly. One major change is that the office takes the lead in all stages of marketing and licensing an invention. There is a full staff to guide researchers through the process. They also have a budget now to get the patent application process going. Meyer emphasizes that it's important for the University to use its own money to file applications on certain inventions before going to market.
Proof is in the numbers.
While the number of inventions licensed has increased 343 percent since fiscal year 1995, the amount of sponsored research awards from industry has also increased dramatically. With each invention that is licensed, all inventors receive a share of 40 percent of the license income as personal income, the faculty member's department gets 40 percent and OTD gets 20 percent to file new patent applications for discoveries that haven't yet been licensed. Meyer said this formula is very favorable compared to formulas at other research universities where the inventors may get only 15 or 20 percent of the license income. To help continue this growth, OTD invites all faculty members to put their energies into trying to identify market-driven discoveries and reporting them in a timely manner. This way, Meyer said, there will be ample opportunity to market and license inventions to companies which in turn will provide products to benefit the public.