New Report Summarizes Federal Tech Transfer Activities

Collaborative research agreements, invention licenses and several other technology transfer activities of the federal government trended upward between 2002 and 2007, according to a new, NIST-prepared summary report to the President and Congress. Over the five-year span, the number of active licenses of inventions and other intellectual property generated by research programs in the 11 agencies with internal research programs rose to 10,347, an increase of about 60 percent. Federal revenues from these licenses totaled nearly $150 million in fiscal year 2007, a jump of 54 percent. However, disclosures of new inventions and patenting activity dipped slightly over the same period. In contrast, the number of active cooperative research and development agreements, or CRADAs, increased 30 percent, to more than 7,300. This is the first year that NIST prepared the annual report on federal technology transfer activities. Previous editions were issued by the Commerce Department’s former Technology Administration. Current and past reports are available on the Web site of the NIST Office of Technology Partnerships at http://patapsco.nist.gov/ts/220/external/index.htm.