ACCELERATING NASA TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER THROUGH STRATEGIC INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT
- Paper number
IAC-16,E5,2,1,x35479
- Coauthor
Mr. Mark Dvorscak, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), United States
- Coauthor
Mr. Daniel Lockney, NASA, United States
- Year
2016
- Abstract
Written into the founding legislation that created NASA in 1958 is a directive to ensure that the technologies created for space exploration and aeronautics also benefit the whole of humanity. To accomplish this, NASA brings together the agency’s most capable technical problem-solvers and America’s brightest commercial and entrepreneurial leaders to create partnerships that transfer these groundbreaking NASA technologies to the public. NASA has launched multiple new technology transfer initiatives that coordinate the work of the NASA field centers under an agency-directed Intellectual Property strategy that enables more efficient operations while ensuring that more NASA technologies make their way into America's private sector. The agency has taken a strategic and proactive approach to managing its intellectual property assets, and created tools that give the outside world a seamless and integrated interface with NASA, thus leveraging its technology portfolio in ways that will create new businesses in many different industries. The results of these new initiatives can be demonstrated in NASA’s growing rate of technology transfer. In four years, NASA has managed a 250 percent increase in annual patent licensing and a 100 percent increase in software releases. The technologies transferred represent not just shared benefits with U.S. businesses, but also a significant return on investment to American taxpayers in the form of jobs created, revenue generated, new products brought to market and an improvement in the quality of life on Earth, right now. In this paper, we will discuss the challenges that faced NASA as a result of various U.S. legislative and executive mandates to increase technology transfer and commercialization of U.S. Federally sponsored R & D, and how these challenges have been met to increase the transfer of NASA’s technology. We will provide examples of successful initiatives along with descriptions of the approach and tools used, results to date, issues addressed, and ongoing changes made.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)