Office issues patents, starts
new companies
By Ian Clift
Summer Reporter
The Office of Technology Commercialization has
existed since the late 1980s and issues around 30 patents a year, with
around 350 patents owned.
The office manages and licenses the intellectual
property of Purdue University and has become more proactive in the past
few years.
"Intellectual property can be legally protected
patent, copyright, trademark and trade secrets," said Lisa Kuuttila,
director of the Office of Technology Commercialization.
The first step in the patent process is to fill
out an invention disclosure form offered through the office. Most intellectual
property should have a future use in industry said Kuuttila, "(intellectual
property) doesn't have an immediate use, but it must have commercial
potential."
Professors and scientists at Purdue are better
off to publish in a trade journal if there are no commercial uses for
their work.
"Another aspect of what we do is we help start
new companies, that is a company licensed by the University," said Kuuttila.
One start-up company is Griffin Analytical Technologies,
created by Dennis Barket and Garth Patterson, both graduate students
in the School of Science.
They were interested in licensing a portable mass
spectroscopy technology invented in professor Gram Cook's lab.
"Purdue owns the patent and we made negotiations
with the office of commercialization for a license for that patent,"
said Barket.
"We've formed the corporation," he said. "We're
going to develop and commercialize a miniature chemical detector. We
hope to sell it to research universities, to environmental markets and
perhaps to the department of defense."
The use of the portable mass spectrometer will
allow scientists the ability to test water and air quality data in the
field.
The office negotiated with Barket and Patterson
to find a mutually beneficial plan for the use of the university patents.
Griffin technologies will use a $250,000 convertible loan to start its
company.
In 2000, five start-up companies were licensed
through Purdue technology.
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