The mission of the Technology Licensing Office (TLO) is to facilitate the transfer of technology from M.I.T. (and the Whitehead Institute) to industry, and thereby to benefit the public good through the development and subsequent sale of commercial products. A secondary goal is to generate unrestricted funds to motivate inventors and to support research and education at M.I.T. The TLO staff of 26 (11 licensing professionals and 14 administrative and support personnel) are responsible for identifying marketable technologies, managing the patenting and copyrighting of these technologies, finding licenses to develop the technologies and negotiating licenses.
A total of 81 License and Option agreements were signed in FY 1996, including 9 new startup companies. Five biomedical products received FDA approval.
Gross Income for the year was $10.2 Million, which included no cash-in of equity. Of the gross, $8.1 Million was in royalty income and $1.2 in patent reimbursement income. $1.2 Million was distributed to inventors, $1.3 to departments, $199K to Whitehead, and a net of $1.35 Million to the General Fund.
We continued an active licensing and technology transfer program for Lincoln Laboratories which now accounts for 20% of our new invention disclosures and a similar fraction of new licenses.
Members of the Technology Licensing Office have been very active at the state and federal level in aiding legislation and other activities to do with economic development, changes in patent law and changes in technology transfer legislation. They have also been active at the committee and board levels with the Association of University Technology Managers and the Association of Federal Technology Transfer Executives.
Lita Nelson
MIT Reports to the President 1995-96