Collection of National Laboratories Sign Intellectual Property Bundling Agreement

One of the many challenges for tech-based economic development organizations and private firms is to access and take advantage of the wealth of knowledge produced throughout the nation’s federal laboratory system. With the hope of making their intellectual property more accessible for commercialization, four research facilities within the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) recently signed a cooperative agreement to pool together their patents.

 

The Innovation Bundling Initiative aligns the intellectual property of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, the Nevada Test Site, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Under the initiative, patents originating from these facilities will be sorted into groups by subject matter and similarity of technologies, which can then be marketed in this organized manner to the private sector. Additionally, the bundling will enable collaborators to negotiate with a single entity for patent access, as opposed to dealing with the individual facilities that own each particular patent.

 

The initiative was jointly developed by the Technology Ventures Corporation, which, since 2002, has been under contract with NNSA to assist with the commercialization of technology. It serves as an example of recent strides to improve the transfer of intellectual property of national laboratories. A press release further explaining the advantages of the bundling agreement can be found at: http://www.techventures.org/news/index.php?releaseID=078

 

Learn More About State & Local Partnerships with Federal Laboratories . . .

TBED Success through Partnership with Federal Laboratories will be one of the timely breakout sessions at SSTI’s 11th Annual Conference in Baltimore, Oct. 18-19. During this session, we’ll discuss state-led models encouraging collaboration between research universities, businesses and national laboratories. Participants will learn how these initiatives are yielding strong regional economic benefits by leveraging indigenous technical clusters of innovation.

 

The discussions will include contributions by:

• Belinda Padilla, Program Manager, Development Office, Technology Transfer Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory
• James A. Poulos, III, Vice President, Technology Transfer & Commercialization, Maryland Technology Development Corp.
• Elmer Salazar, Project Leader, Regional Business Infrastructure, Development Office, Technology Transfer Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory
• John Slanina, Policy Analyst, SSTI
• John Edmond, Collaboration Program Manager, Innovative Partnership Program NASA Headquarters & FLC Mid-Atlantic Regional Coordinator
• Terry Lynch, Office of Technology Partnerships, National Institute of Science and Technology

More information on the conference is available at: http://www.ssticonference.org/