to:  all participants in sem089;

re:  part two of the seminar, intellectual property issues;
     related mit presenters on 19 & 26 october, 16 november;
     sloan masters candidate b-plan presentation on 2 november;
     3 minute student idea presentations and outlining of 
     business plans begin on 9 november (details forthcoming);

background:

assume you've had an idea, and you thought it was great :-)

time passes and the idea still seems great and you've come to the
conclusion that you absolutely must do something about it.

you've determined that it's technologically do-able, you've searched
for, discovered and successfully attracted to your plan a couple
of "perfect" other people interested in becoming part of your team :-) 
and your beginning to talk about who works on which part of your
business plan ... all the while beginning to talk-up the idea with
potential leads to venture capital, but feeling uneasy about how much
information to divulge to anyone outside the team.

and it's traditionally nearly impossible to attract serious venture
capital, even loans, to a new technology start-up idea that cannot
somehow be protected from a wide range of encroachments and outright
thefts, including the individual components of some new works.

beginning this coming tuesday, 19 october, we'll start considering
issues of intellectual property, patent law and searches, protection 
schemes of all kinds, technology transfer within the institute,
as well as between universities and corporations, corporations and
one another, and international technology transfer among countries.

first-hand accounts from individuals at mit who have done their own
work, those who have had mit's technology licensing office accomplish
the relevant tasks, and those who have hired outside legal assistance,
are scheduled over the next five weeks, during which time we'll also
begin to look at the outlines for our individual business plans, for
our real, or imaginary, high-tech start-ups.


tue 19 october, john preston, associate vp for research at mit:

john preston, recent director of the mit technology licensing office,
aka, the "tlo", and now associate vice president for research at mit,
will launch this part of the seminar at our next meeting on tuesday,
19 october.  john took over the directorship of the tlo in circa 1982,
had a track record of having done something like 18 technology start-
ups _before_ coming to mit, an mba and an undergraduate degree in physics.

john has worked with professor bill thilly of mit's center for environmental
health sciences doing at least 7 start-ups, was instrumental in helping
bill haney, et al, put together molten metals corporation (on which
board of directors professor mert flemings mentioned he too sits) which
had $40 million dollars in first-round start-up funding, and john helped
me think through the idea for the $10k student competition while i was
walking that around the institute, and he was the chair of the first 10k
judging panel in 1990.

john is also a director of two national technology transfer professionals'
organisations, the association of university technology managers (autm)
and the corporate version of the same group, the society for executive
licensors (sel), and sits on committees on patents and technology at mit
and is actively involved in mit's enterprise forum.

between his work and travels for mit, the forum, autm and sel, john
calculates he spends about 73 percent of his time on mit's national and
international activities associated with high-tech start-ups being
launched by mit students, faculty, staff and alum.


tue, 26 october, lori pressman, technology licensing officer, mit;

on the following tuesday, lori pressman, mit '86, course 8, and
now a technology licensing officer in mit's tlo, will visit the
seminar and discuss intellectual property law and protection.

among lori's extensive interests in new ideas, protection and licensing,
is what's going on with high-tech associated businesses spinning
off from universities and research centers in the former soviet union.
lori has travelled to russia and receives numerous faxes from russia's
scientists and researchers looking for guidance and help from mit.

  (side note on networking)

  (especially for those interested in long-term high-tech business
   possibilities working with the russians and students from the other
   former soviet union countries, and in ongoing plans to develop
   the mit entrepreneurs club moscow office:

  (on sunday, 7 november, lori will be joining me and 75 invited guests
   at a "current events in russia, information networking event" at
   the studios of wbur-fm, when we hear and meet bbc journalist and 
   moscow correspondent bridgit kimbal, just returned from four years 
   of covering matters we need to know as much about from inside 
   the cis as is possible.  
 
  (for my part i've invited the host american-based company that
   has offered us space to start-up the e-club moscow office, the faxon
   company, represented by it's ceo, dr. richard rowe and, i hope,
   former mit president jerome wiesner, who sit's on that company board,
   and who has spent years working behind the scenes helping launch
   mit start-ups.  i personally look at this as a big step toward
   getting our first serious branch activity up-and-running.

  (we'll take copious notes, of course, and report back to the seminar
   and the e-club later in the term).


tue, 2 november, busty okundaye, 2nd. year sloan masters program:

busty is an engineer by training, having spent the past few years
at general motors in design and engineering in michigan, before
coming to mit.

presently, he and a partner plan to develop and launch a petroleum
engineering and technology consulting company in busty's home
country, nigeria.  the team's cumulative expertise and experiences
include engineering, design, extensive cad-based work and
some economics and management (hence sloan time).

nigeria has an enourmous oil region in the south, including the
eastern biafran area, extensive refineries and networks of pipelines.
an amazing 90% of nigeria's gnp is based on petroleum revenues.

the team is now at the stage of putting together a business plan,
and we'll hear them relate what they're doing during the preparation
phases, and, by that tuesday, what they've learned from local sources
of petroleum expert business knowledge we've connected busty to.

(an invited guest in the petroleum distribution and customer services
field is my father-in-law, richard l. gardner, recently retired
ceo of the massachusetts-based general oil and general chemical
corporations.  dick gardner graduated from harvard in 1945 in physics,
and the harvard b-school in '52.  his father, another harvard graduate,
was a wild cat oil driller in mexico near the (previous) turn of 
the century.  dick has extensive experience in looking at ideas
related to the oil and chemical business, especially with regard to
environmental regulations effecting business operations and certainly
how such enterprises get funded and re-funded in the current world.
dick gardner will sit in on busty's presentation and offer comments
on the b-plan and ideas for finding financing for the operation).


tue, 16 november, lita nelsen, director, mit technology licensing office:

lita will introduce in a more general sense what the mit tlo is about,
how the formal processes of approaching mit for help might develop
into mit going to work for students, faculty and staff to come to
agreements on ownership and licensing of new technologies.

lita is a 1964 graduate of mit (chemistry) and later got her sm
at the sloan school.  she's been behind the scenes of mit start-ups
including alpha-beta technology, of worcester, and a judge on
the annual $10k student competition judging panel.

more about the tlo as the 16th approaches, including handouts
and additional readings and references to land in dewey.


questions?  comments?  additional thoughts?  new thinking?

i'm here,

	- richard
.