Key Best Practices—Moving Forward on the Right Path

Symbiotic Innovation is the proactive and concerted operation of technology spin-out and spin-in, recognizing that these are interdependent activities. These insights explain the concept of Symbiotic Innovation, how to implement it, how it relates to open innovation, and other insights.

Symbiotic Innovation Essentials

• Symbiotic Innovation: Proactive, Concerted Spin-Out and Spin-In

  How innovation can—and should—occur in any R&D organization.

• Get More Bang from Your Spin-Out Buck the Symbiotic Innovation Way

  How spin-in activities can benefit from spin-out activities.

• More on Symbiotic Innovation: How Doing Spin-In Helps with Spin-Out

  How spin-out activities can benefit from spin-in activities.

• Yes, I’m Talking to You (about Symbiotic Innovation)

  Why all R&D organizations—corporate, university, government—should work both the spin-out and spin-in angles.

• Collaborations Protect Your Competitive Advantage and Minimize Risk

  Maybe you think spin-in doesn’t apply in the corporate setting because you think collaborating compromises your competitive advantage. We’re saying, it doesn’t have to.

Implementing Symbiotic Innovation

• Prerequisites and First Steps When Creating a Tech Transfer Office

  The blueprint for implementing Symbiotic Innovation.

• Using Market Research to Find the Tech-Need Intersection

  The same market research conducted for tech screenings for spin-out can inform your R&D, product development, and spin-in efforts.

• The Road Not Taken: A Case Study on Symbiotic Innovation

  It is easy to lose sight of your goal when near-term metrics, such as signed licenses, are emphasized. How can you keep the bigger picture in mind?

• Stories from the Field: The Ripened Fruit Tastes Sweeter

  What do you do when you can see the amazing potential of a technology, and yet still know that it needs more development time before it’s ready for licensing? Give it the time and resources it needs to ripen.

The Connection with Open Innovation

• Worth Noting: Excerpts from Tweet Chat with Henry Chesbrough

  A “transcript” of the interactions that resonated with Fuentek.

• Take an Internal IP Inventory before You Jump on the Open Innovation Bandwagon

  What to do when you can see the amazing potential of a technology, and yet still know that it needs more development time before it’s ready for licensing.

• Proctor & Gamble Open Innovation Twitter Chat Describes Symbiotic Innovation Success

  P&G’s broad definition for open innovation closely matches Fuentek’s definition of Symbiotic Innovation.

• Reflections on Kraft’s Systematic Open Innovation Webinar

  Several excellent points that resonated with our experiences at Fuentek.

• General Mills Chats about Open Innovation: My Takeaways

  Some of the valuable insights, along with some of our own thoughts.

• Cookin’ Up Innovation at NASA

  Innovation is a recipe for a meal, and different meals call for different recipes.

Other Insights

• Crowdsourcing: Move Beyond the Buzz, Consider the Costs

  Are you factoring in all of the cost aspects of the crowdsourcing model for open innovation?

• Conversations with DoD & the White House on Federal Tech Transfer Initiatives

  Fuentek recommendations for increasing the likelihood and efficiency of getting research results to market.

• Putting the “Open” in Open Services Innovation

  Chesbrough’s new book reflects how Fuentek operates as a business.

• It’s about Relationships, Not Transactions: Stories from the Field

  Patience may be your best bet, as is keeping not only the technical but also the larger business aspects of tech transfer in mind.

Best practices in IP management are tied to being proactive and strategic while also being cost-efficient and effective, preferably in a Symbiotic Innovation environment. The insights below provide the big-picture overview of these concepts, while specific tactics are covered in the IP Management Processes section.

Key Insights

• Proactively and Strategically Managing IP—Webcast Now Available

  An overview of each step in the Fuentek Filtering Process, which enables TTOs to be proactive and strategic in managing their IP.

• Stop Reacting, Start Proacting: Planning for Strategic Tech Marketing

  How to develop a plan for proactive, strategic technology marketing that gets you the deals you need to achieve your goals and meet your metrics.

• Technology Screenings and Assessments: Making Informed Commercialization Decisions

  Fuentek recommends a two-phase evaluation of a technology’s commercial viability from a market perspective.

• Laura Schoppe Discusses Patent Portfolio Screening

  Explains what these screenings involve and how they can help companies maximize the value of their intellectual property.

• Commercializing Federally Funded Research: Paper Lays Out Roadmap

  A new paper answers the question: How do TTOs find and commercialize the high-potential technologies efficiently (i.e., with their available resources and in a reasonable amount of time)?

• Tech Transfer Resolutions for 2012

  Laura Schoppe’s top 5 recommendations for being a proactive technology transfer office to achieve near-term and long-term success.

• Viewing Technology Licensing through a New PRISM

  Outlines Fuentek’s Prioritize, ROI, Information Management, Streamline, Measure focus.

Other Insights

• How’d We Do?: Establishing Useful Technology Transfer Metrics

  This white paper provides research-based recommendations for measuring performance and success of tech transfer programs in government, academic, and corporate institutions.

• Patent Filings Gone Wild (or The Biggest Mistake You Can Make Under the America Invents Act)

  Some in the industry suggest that the USPTO’s shift from a “first to invent” to a “first inventor to file” policy demands the virtually automatic filing of quick-and-dirty provisionals on everything. We hope that tech transfer offices do not heed this advice. Read this post to learn why and what we recommend instead.

• Conversations with DoD & the White House on Federal Tech Transfer Initiatives

  Fuentek recommendations for increasing the likelihood and efficiency of getting research results to market.

• Getting Faculty on Your Side through Systematic Screening and Interns: Stories from the Field

  How to turn around a faculty that’s in revolt against the TTO.

• Reaping Long-Term Rewards from Strategic IP Portfolio Screening: Stories from the Field

  How an efficient and effective IP portfolio screening helped a university do more than just prioritize its IP for future technology transfer and marketing efforts.

• Why Can’t I Just Start Marketing? A Tech Transfer Webcast

  It is important to proactively gather the market-based information you need to not only decide whether further commercialization efforts are warranted but also to fully understand market interest and assemble a successful marketing plan.

• Less Is More: Commercialization Factors for Assessments

  After you’ve done all of your market-based assessment research, it’s often sufficient to evaluate just a few key factors in your final analysis rather than get mired down in a lengthy list.

Collaborative R&D agreements can help address technical challenges quickly and cost-effectively. Fuentek's insights can help your TTO as you seek technology sources and collaborators for in-licensing and joint-development research.

Key Insights

• Scratching Beneath the Surface of Collaborative R&D Partnerships

  An in-depth look at Fuentek’s collaborative R&D partnerships flow chart.

• Forming R&D Partnerships: 8 Keys to Success

  What we’ve learned over several years of helping organizations form collaborative R&D relationships.

• Overcoming One of the Biggest Barriers to Open Innovation

  Presents a brief overview of the Understand-Address-Present model.

Other Insights

• Crowdsourcing: Move Beyond the Buzz, Consider the Costs

  Are you factoring in all of the cost aspects of the crowdsourcing model for open innovation?

• Collaborations Protect Your Competitive Advantage and Minimize Risk

  Maybe you think spin-in doesn’t apply in the corporate setting because you think collaborating compromises your competitive advantage. We’re saying, it doesn’t have to.

• Tackling the Sticky Intellectual Property Issues in Alliance Collaborations

  Key recommendations for making the most of collaborations while still maintaining your IP.

• Tools to Identify Potential Collaborators and R&D Partners

  Our top information sources for identifying potential partners.

• How Do I Address the Customer’s Needs When I Don’t Know Who the Customer Is?

  NASA personnel raise an interesting question at a training on open innovation.

Effective communications is essential for TTOs to connect with potential licensees and collaborators as well as with the innovators and managers whose participation is essential to successful technology transfer. Below are Fuentek's best practices in marketing communications. We also offer insights on technology transfer marketing strategies as well as specific technology marketing tools. And we have insights on the larger communications strategies and tactics that are essential for running an effective TTO.

Key Best Practices

• How Does Your Marketing Message Sound? Free Webcast Now Available!

  Details about Fuentek’s AMMO approach to marketing.

• Choosing the Right Marketing Mechanisms

  A comprehensive review of the various traditional, digital, and social media mechanisms for marketing your technologies.

• Look before You Leap into Tech Marketing

  An experience that shows the importance of carefully considering the market’s view of a technology before launching into marketing.

• Marketing Your Technologies Online – Webcast Now Available

  A list of the must-have elements for your technology Web pages and shows a real-world page as a sample.

• Practical Advice for Tech Transfer Web Sites

  Details on creating a Web site that is valuable for your prospective licensees, partners, and other internal and external stakeholders.

Other Best Practices

• Getting Faculty on Your Side through Systematic Screening and Interns: Stories from the Field

  How to turn around a faculty that’s in revolt against the TTO.

• New Podcast: How to Apply for and Win Tech Awards

  Why you should submit technologies for awards and how winning awards can augment your tech transfer efforts.

• Invest in Your Inventors: Training Pays Off

  Training innovators on the ins and outs of IP management helps them understand many aspects of tech transfer.

• Enhancing Economic Development through Technology Transfer of Federal- and State-Funded R&D

  Offers specific ways that government/university TTOs and economic development agencies can contribute to a mutually beneficial partnership.

• Some Advice on Prepping for One-On-One Meetings at Industry Conferences

  Recommendations for diving into industry conferences with confidence, knowledge, and ammunition for productive meetings with your prospects.

• Applying the AMMO to Tech Transfer Events: Stories from the Field

  Specific details of how Fuentek helped a client accomplish a successful tech transfer outreach event designed to promote economic development.

• Use Success Stories to Avoid Collateral Damage in the Patent Wars

  How to help the public understand the value of patents.