Most tech transfer offices are not profitable

Do a study of the most valuable IP, the research that led to it, the people that did it, and see if you can pattern match against that

# Does more valuable research actually happen on the coasts or are there just better commercialization mechanisms there?

[Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Does_more_valuable_research_actually_happen_on_the_coasts_or_are_there_just_better_commercialization_mechanisms_there)

[Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Does_more_valuable_research_actually_happen_on_the_coasts_or_are_there_just_better_commercialization_mechanisms_there)






Systemic decay theory of stagnation

Any technology that comes out of a university needs to go through their tech transfer office

Licensing is a bad primary income strategy for PARPA

Meta-Tech Transfer Office

Innovation requires multiple people

University of Waterloo assigns all IP ownership to the creators of that IP

Technology transfer is a mystifying abstraction

University Patent Thickets - Article

# Most tech transfer offices are not profitable
The exceptions are your usual suspects - MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley.
[[Does more valuable research actually happen on the coasts or are there just better commercialization mechanisms there?]]

[Even MIT only does $34M in licensing revenue revenue](https://web.mit.edu/facts/industry.html#:~:text=In%20fiscal%20year%202019%2C%20the,million%20in%20total%20licensing%20revenue.) (in contrast to companies founded by MIT grads doing[$1.9T in revenue](https://web.mit.edu/facts/entrepreneurship.html))  - this contrast backs up the fact that [[It is hard to capture value from research]] and [[Current value capture mechanisms are crude]]. 

[In 2010 Stanford did $65.1M in licensing revenue](https://www.mercurynews.com/2010/12/21/stanfords-ideas-generate-65-1-million-in-revenues/#:~:text=Stanford's%20total%20earnings%20from%20inventions,Association%20of%20University%20Technology%20Managers.). Over four decades it got $1.1B, with half of that just from Google and Recombinant DNA. 

Gatorade earned University of Florida $80 million since 1973. 

Some explanations for this:
-  [[Coastal schools have a deep market around commercializing technology]] 
- [[The reason you see so much commercialization coming out of coastal universities is because they have a flywheel of lower transaction costs]]

See [[Katie Saund Email 20/2/2019]] - `(a) at the global TT summit earlier this year, only 2 of the top 30 TT professionals at the meeting said generating revenue was a goal of the TT office but 30/30 said economic development was a goal and (b) I talked with the director at NC State’s TT office which is entirely self funded — they keep all IP revenue. They seem to have just enough money for staff and overhead, but not enough for innovative programs because they needed to get grant funding for those in the last couple years. This is just crazy to me— that’s so little revenue coming into the university! `

### Related
- [[Think universities are making lots of money from inventions? Think again]]

[Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Most_tech_transfer_offices_are_not_profitable)

[Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Most_tech_transfer_offices_are_not_profitable)






Ben's working notes

Does more valuable research actually happen on the coasts or are there just better commercialization mechanisms there?

Links to this note