Of course, Tech gets to keep the intellectual properties that result. Like Virginia's other public universities, Virginia Tech ventured into the choppy waters of academic entrepreneurship relatively late, more than 15 years after the vanguard institutions in other states. Tech's guidelines are more explicit than those of many universities but they fall on the liberal side in handling university contracts and royalty revenues. At MIT, for instance, inventors receive 33 percent, rather than 50 percent of the royalties, after costs are deducted. Its engineering dean, Arthur Porter, former technology advisor to Texas Gov. George W. Bush, is putting inventions on par with scholarly research in the academic rewards system.
Tech hopes to do the same, and more.
Rappaport's firm already has expansion plans. For all the progress the university has made, it's still tweaking its policies. To help professors be entrepreneurial, Tech is considering liberalizing old rules that limit outside consulting to one day a week for not more than five consecutive weeks. These rules were set up before business could be conducted electronically. Tech's conflict of interest policy can be reviewed at the College of Engineering Web site.