Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
J Investig Med. 2011 Jun;59(5):758-61. doi: 10.2310/JIM.0b013e318216ad33.
Technology transfer is the process by which novel ideas at academic institutions emanating from research supported by public and private funds are transferred to the private sector for developing marketable products for public use and benefit. Because the primary mission of universities is education and research, technology transfer in an academic environment introduces many challenges. This field is new to most faculty members and is seldom a core mission of their academic careers. The process is also new and unfamiliar to most university administrators. However, universities are increasingly challenged to demonstrate how their research with public funds translates into public benefit. Technology transfer by universities has taken on a new dimension with a focus first on protecting the intellectual property emanating from academic research, then finding means to develop and commercialize such intellectual property for launching new products in the market for public use and benefit. The Bayh-Dole Act enacted in 1980 (Public Law 96-517) allowed universities to elect to retain title to inventions arising from their federally funded research and to grant licenses to the patents, copyrights, or trademarks deriving from these inventions. Universities are allowed to retain the royalties and to share them with the inventors. This article presents the perspectives of technology transfer professionals, specifically, what technology transfer offices do or can do to assist researchers with commercialization of the novel ideas in biomedical research. It also provides a list of successful therapeutics that stemmed from academic research. In conclusion, reference is made to some of the challenges of technology transfer.
技术转让是指将学术机构中源于公共和私人资金支持的研究产生的新颖理念转移到私营部门，开发可用于公共用途和造福公众的有市场价值的产品的过程。由于大学的主要使命是教育和研究，因此学术环境中的技术转让带来了许多挑战。这一领域对大多数教师来说是全新的，很少是他们学术生涯的核心使命。该过程对大多数大学管理人员来说也是全新且不熟悉的。然而，大学越来越受到挑战，需要证明他们用公共资金进行的研究如何转化为公共利益。随着重点首先放在保护源于学术研究的知识产权上，然后寻找开发和商业化此类知识产权的方法，以推出市场上供公众使用和受益的新产品，大学的技术转让已经呈现出新的维度。1980 年颁布的《拜杜法案》（Public Law 96-517）允许大学选择保留其联邦资助研究产生的发明的所有权，并授予专利、版权或商标的许可证，这些发明源于这些发明。大学可以保留版税并与发明人分享。本文介绍了技术转让专业人员的观点，即技术转让办公室在协助研究人员将生物医学研究中的新颖理念商业化方面可以做什么或已经做了什么。它还提供了一系列源于学术研究的成功疗法的清单。最后，提到了技术转让面临的一些挑战。
