Competitive Service Center (CSC)
Technology Transfer Center (TTC) works closely with each new Client Institute and Center (IC) to assess its unique
technology development needs,and to provide the same high quality of
support and responsiveness now furnished to existing Clients as well
the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Services Available
TTC currently provides a complete array of services to support the
technology development needs of NCI and TTC's clients, to help enable
their research activities. The TTC through its CSC can offer any or
all of the following services to them.
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Assessment and consultation on Employee Invention Reports, which
may include conducting a knock-out search for patentability; an
analysis of the invention with respect to federal laws,
regulations, and Public Health Service (PHS) patent policy; and advice regarding the
prosecution of patent applications;
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Guidance on how to handle extramural inventions for which the
grantee has declined title;
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Negotiation of technology-development agreements, including
Cooperative Research And Development Agreements, Material Transfer
Agreements, Clinical Trial Agreements, Confidential Disclosure
Agreements, and related agreements;
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Trademark prosecution and maintenance services;
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Tracking of, and reporting on, all IC active cases;
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Training of IC staff in matters of technology development related
to their official duties; and
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Serving as liaison to allied offices in PHS, such as the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Office
of Technology Transfer and the NIH Office of the General Counsel.
Customized Services
TTC is happy to accommodate whatever requirements a client might have.
Variations on the above services provided to existing clients include:
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TTC services all the technology development needs of the Client;
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TTC performs any and all tasks that happen to arise out of a
particular laboratory or program at the IC;
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TTC handles all of a particular class of tasks, such as all Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADA);
or
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TTC performs specific, assigned projects on an as-needed basis.
Regardless of the extent of services provided, each Client retains
full, existing authority to approve documents and execute agreements.
With the exception of trademark-related matters, TTC's services
shall be limited to advice and consulting only.
Benefits to the IC
The advantages of using the TTC CSC include the following:
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Efficiency - For most ICs, maintaining an office
that can provide the range of services available through TTC
requires hiring more staff than the work load would support.
Through TTC, an IC can expend less than the cost of a single FTE,
yet receive services of a highly trained person backed by a fully
resourced office.
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Access to Expertise - On a daily basis, members of TTC
consult with each other on a variety of scientific and legal
issues. On a weekly basis, TTC gathers for a brown-bag lunch, at
which topics of technology development, negotiation strategies, and
other matters are discussed. All of this corporate knowledge is
available to clients of TTC, without the need for the IC to staff
its own office with a complement of lawyers and scientists with
various specialities.
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Innovative Products/Services - TTC is continually
developing tools that streamline processes and encourage
collaborations with industry partners who have, in the past, been
unwilling to agree to the unique requirements of federal
laboratories.
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Networking - TTC staff routinely keep each other
informed of opportunities for collaborations. For example, when a
collaborator interested in working on nitroxides approached NCI,
the specialist happened to know that one of the Clients also had a
project concerning nitroxides. When this information was passed on,
the Client had the opportunity to establish an independent CRADA
with that collaborator.
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Coordinated Negotiations - Private parties have
interactions with multiple ICs, and often the coordination of
negotiations is important to protect the IC's interests.
Knowing what agreements and terms a company has previously agreed
to with other ICs gives the CSC an advantage in negotiations and
allows the CSC to expedite the agreement for the client.
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Marketing - TTC exhibits at a variety of
scientific and biotechnology conferences and forums, and in so
doing, has helped to raise awareness in the private sector of the
opportunities for collaborations with NCI and our Clients. TTC also
uses its Web site as well as other Internet marketing sites to
promote these opportunities.
TTC Initiatives
TTC strives to foster a creative work environment that encourages an
exchange of ideas for improving the quality of our technology transfer
services. Over the years, TTC has initiated or been substantially
involved in a multitude of innovative projects, including the
development of:
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The CRADA Letter of Intent, permitting the research portion of a
prospective CRADA to begin while negotiations are still ongoing;
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A Network Confidentiality Agreement designed to enable a large
number of clinical trial sites to exchange information among
themselves and the sponsoring IC;
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The Model Clinical-Trial for use by all ICs in the PHS;
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The Materials-CRADA, permitting the receipt of proprietary or
patented materials in exchange for rights to intellectual property
created by PHS using those materials (an alternative to negotiating
a full CRADA);
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The "Materials Transfer Agreement (MTA) Sourcebook," which is a clause-by-clause manual
for negotiating Material Transfer Agreements;
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A variety of informational brochures relating to technology
transfer, for the benefit of private industry as well as NIH
scientists; and
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A new section on our web site called the "NIH Scientist
Corner" which provides updates on technology transfer and
related news.