ChiefNode

Back from Norway

I've returned from my trip to Norway, where I was hosted by the Norweigen Trade & Industry Council, and met with the senior staff of the Norweigen technology transfer offices. Norway launched their formal university technology transfer program just 30 months ago, and are now thinking about measuring the effectiveness of their efforts. The technology transfer offices are centrally (eg federally) funded (at least to some major degree), and so the federal government is interested in the metrics used to see their "return on investment." The offices are all structured differently, and generally seem to have a broader focus than many offices in the U.S. -- at least when the U.S. offices began.

Norway has the advantage of designing offices and metrics in a time where technology transfer is widely acknowledged to include more than just patent management. When U.S. offices began (largely in the 1980s) the best practice was to focus on what was scaleable and had the most market power -- the patent. The market (and how IP is managed & deployed) have now changed. AUTM is working on changing its metrics. . and newer systems have the chance to start "correctly" from the beginning.

Good luck Norway, Taiwan, the Netherlands, etc. . .we are watching. And learning.

posted by Dana Bostrom @ 09:55