IP & Tech Transfer – Helge Seetzen

IP & Tech Transfer , venture capital series

From Idea to Enterprise – Technology Transfer Tips for Academics

The earlier articles in this series by Helge Seetzen described the fundamental aspects of building a venture: people, funding, and monetization. While this information is useful for all aspiring entrepreneurial technologists, this fifth and final article in this series is devoted to the specific demographic of university researchers. UNIVERSITY...

March 10, 2015February 5, 2018

IP & Tech Transfer

Why Intellectual Property Licensing is in a League of its Own

I recently had the pleasure of doing an interview with Stephen Ibaraki and thought it was worth sharing some of our conversation on licensing negotiations (You can check out the full interview here). Licensing is unlike exchanges in the normal marketplace because intellectual property licensing occurs entirely in the...

April 23, 2014June 30, 2017

IP & Tech Transfer , Tech Transfer & IP

Regionally-Focused VS. Domain-Focused University Tech Transfer

Some Technology Transfer Offices (TTO) have been exploring the idea of domain-focused rather than regionally-focused technology transfer recently. This shift is an extremely powerful idea in my mind. In fact, the advantages of domain-focus are the reason TandemLaunch has the specialization it does in consumer electronics market. Yet the...

May 30, 2012July 4, 2017

IP & Tech Transfer

Gaps in the Research, Development, and Engineering Chain

I talk a lot about bridging the ‘technology transfer gap’, but there is more than one place where technologies fall to their doom in the development of a new product. When you define each stage in the process (Research, Development and Engineering) you start to see that there are...

January 10, 2012July 5, 2017

IP & Tech Transfer

Five Steps for University Inventors

For researchers working in technical fields, inventions are to be expected. Unfortunately, many university inventors receive little, if any, training on what to do once they have an invention on their hands. Our team has put together a handy FAQ to help orient inventors to the world of university-industry...

November 3, 2011July 7, 2017

IP & Tech Transfer

Why ‘First-to-File’ works for University Inventors

There have been mixed reactions to the new America Invents Act. While the bill may be far from perfect, some of the concerns U.S. universities have had over the change to a First-to-File system are overstated in my opinion. Some are claiming that the conversion from First-to-Invent to First-to-File...

October 12, 2011July 7, 2017

IP & Tech Transfer

Disrupting the University Tech Transfer Space

At TandemLaunch, we invest in multi-media concepts but ultimately we are trying to disrupt the university technology transfer space. I wrote about the benefits of improving this highly inefficient $50billion+ market earlier. It’s big; it’s inefficient; and we believe that it is ripe for disruption. Technology transfer is a...

August 17, 2011July 7, 2017

IP & Tech Transfer

Forget Software Patents

Software patents have been in the news a lot lately. The US broadened its position on patents a few years ago and introduced so called “Software Patents” to protect software applications directly. The first wave of these patents is now hitting the courts and the lack of precedence decisions creates...

March 1, 2011July 10, 2017

IP & Tech Transfer , Tech Transfer & IP

Stubborn University Terms

Dealing with universities and their Technology Transfer Offices (TTO) can be a very frustrating experience if you don’t understand the unique cultural barriers at universities. I am often in the role of intermediary between the university and business world, so the following dialog is common: Helge: The university wants...

November 30, 2010July 13, 2017

IP & Tech Transfer

Inventors Don’t Pitch (at least the University Ones Don’t)

Investing in university innovation is very difficult. In fact, I would argue that it is nearly impossible for traditional venture funds. Part of this is the inherent expectation gap between university inventors and venture capitalists. The latter wants focused, multi-disciplinary founders (tech & biz), and universities generally don’t have...

November 22, 2010July 13, 2017