Category: Intellectual property
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Grad Student Improves Solar Collector, Starts Company
A masters degree candidate at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands developed a new type of hybrid solar collector with higher efficiency and longer lifespan than the current hybrid systems. Stefan Roest, who recently completed his degree in sustainable energy technology at Delft, also helped start Eternal Sun, a company to bring solar test…
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Quick Color-Change Lens Technology Leads to New Company
A professor of chemistry and colleagues at University of Connecticut in Storrs have devised a process for quick-changing, variable colors in films and displays, such as sunglasses. Greg Sotzing and one of his colleagues started a company called Alphachromics Inc. to commercialize the technology for consumer sunglasses lenses and military goggles. Transition lenses normally use…
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University Culture Impacts Research Commercialization
A Baylor University management professor in Waco, Texas finds research universities with an organizational climate that supports commercialization and encourages interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers are more likely to produce invention disclosures and patent applications. The findings by Baylor’s Emily Hunter and colleagues from University of Houston and University of California at Davis appeared in the…
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Prof. Develops Anti-Microbial Technology for Fabrics
A University of Georgia researcher has invented an anti-microbial technology that can turn medical linens and clothing germ-free. Jason Locklin (right), a member of the chemistry and engineering faculties at the university’s Athens campus, published results of his and colleagues’ research last month in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces; paid subscription required. Locklin’s discovery…
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Challenges Focus on Quantification, Measurements of Metals
Two challenges posted today (30 June) on InnoCentive seek solutions to problems involving quantification or measurements of properties of metals. InnoCentive, in Waltham, Massachusetts, is a company that conducts challenge competitions for sponsors, who for these challenges have decided to remain anonymous. One of today’s challenges seeks a method for in-line quantification and real-time reporting…
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Ink-Jet Printing Method Tested to Make Solar Cells
Engineers at Oregon State University in Corvallis have devised a method of producing a type of solar cell using ink-jet technology. The process, for which a patent has been applied, is described in an upcoming issue of the journal Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells (paid subscription required). The OSU team led by engineering professor…
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U.S. Patent Office Signs New, Expanded Reciprocity Deals
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced new or expanded patent reciprocity agreements with Israel, Korea, and the Nordic Patent Institute that covers Denmark, Norway, and Iceland. All of the agreements involve pilot tests of expedited patent examinations between the U.S. and partner countries. USPTO calls the overall reciprocity program the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH).…
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Grad Students Develop Cord Blood Stem Cell Collection Device
A group of biomedical engineering graduate students at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland have developed a device that improves the collection of stem cells from a newborn’s umbilical cord and placenta. The students have also filed a provisional patent application for the device and formed a company to further develop and commercialize the technology.…
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Audion, Sanofi to Partner on Hearing Loss Therapies
The French pharmaceutical company Sanofi and biotechnology company Audion Therapeutics in Amsterdam have agreed to develop potential treatments for hearing loss through through regenerative medicine and biologics. The collaboration will build on technology developed by Audion’s co-founder Albert Edge at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. Audion originally licensed Edge’s technology from Mass…
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150+ Organizations Call for End to USPTO Fee Diversion
Some 154 organizations sent a letter yesterday asking the House of Representatives leadership to preserve a section in the proposed patent reform legislation that lets the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office use collected patent fees to fund its operations. The organizations — representing companies, universities, and not-for-profit groups — sent the letter to Speaker of…