Realizing the Profits of Research

Linden Rhoads hasn’t forgotten her unpleasant experience a decade ago with the University of Washington’s technology transfer office. A local company she had co-founded, Nimble Technology, wanted to license technology owned by the school.

But the UW TechTransfer office, whose mandate is to commercialize research developed by UW personnel, dragged its feet. “It took a very, very long time and many, many meetings that accomplished little,” Rhoads recalls. “I asked myself: Are we operating on entrepreneur time or university time?” For entrepreneurs, she explains, “Time is the enemy.” Venture investment and related transactions fall through if it takes too long to get things done.

To make matters worse, TechTransfer, invoking a conflict-of-interest rule, refused to let another Nimble co-founder, who was a UW faculty member, sit on the company’s board. Frustrated, he quit UW and went to Stanford University.

In theory, the interests of the university in licensing its research and businesses in commercializing it should be neatly aligned. In practice, however, the process has been far more bureaucratic than entrepreneurial.

The 41-year-old Rhoads, who was hired in August 2008 as vice provost of UW TechTransfer, never wants a scenario like Nimble’s repeated. So she’s been taking steps to make TechTransfer more entrepreneurial, including hiring staff from the private technology sector, relaxing conflict-of-interest and other rules, and launching new initiatives and processes.

Observers are impressed with UW’s selection of Rhoads. “Rather than hire a bureaucrat, they grabbed someone with entrepreneurial experience and contacts,” says Len Jessup, director of Washington State University’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. “They are poised to do [tech transfer] really well.”

The UW is also taking the right approach. “Instead of [only] looking out for the university’s intellectual property rights and maximizing its revenue stream, TechTransfer has taken a more holistic approach to getting technology commercialized,” says Sonya Erickson, a lawyer at Seattle’s Cooley Godward Kronish. The firm has represented dozens of companies seeking UW technology licenses.

When it comes to research dollars, UW ranks first among American public universities, pulling in a cool $1.2 billion annually from the federal government, foundations and corporations. The Obama administration’s economic stimulus program could bump that figure up another $300 million.

Other eye-popping stats: At the end of fiscal year 2008, the UW had over 1,000 granted patents and more than 1,200 patents pending domestically and worldwide.

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