Association of University Technology Managers

The Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) is an organization devoted to promoting technology transfer between universities and colleges and private enterprise and/or the government. Membership consists primarily of technology transfer professionals that work for Universities. The organization is primarily US based. The association was founded in 1974 as the Society of University Patent Administrators to address the objective of getting research out for public use. The association claims over 6,000 members worldwide.

US Universities collectively produce about 3000 US patents per year. These patents are licensed to outside firms or start up companies in order to have these third parties commercialize the inventions. The licensing arrangements collectively produce about $1.4 billion dollars per year for the Universities. The overall R&D budget for Universities, however, is about $40 billion per year.

Bayh-Dole Act

US universities have been able to patent their inventions made as a result of government funded research since 1980. This came about by the enactment of the Bayh-Dole Act. The Bayh-Dole act was passed in response to the observation that very few of the inventions produced by government sponsored research were being commercialized. The rationale behind the act was that by allowing Universities to patent and own government funded inventions, private industry would be more willing to invest in commercializing them knowing that the patents would provide some measure of protection against competitors immediately copying the commercialized products.

There is still considerable debate as to whether or not this objective has been achieved or whether instead the patents are acting as an impediment to commercialization.

External links

* [http://www.autm.org AUTM web site]