IP P®OSPE©TIVE

In a letter sent to President Obama this week from the Licensing Executives Society (LES), the new administration was asked to consider three initiatives to improve the marketplace for intellectual property.  According to the LES press release “[t]he United States must do more to help innovative ideas and products reach the marketplace,” and there needs to be new measures taken so that technology transfer and the commercialization of intellectual property is made easier and more efficient.  Three specific initiatives were set forth with high importance for Obama to consider:

1) Provide gap funding for critical technology development;

2) Preserve intellectual property (IP) policies that promote both innovation and competition; and

3) Support greater access to public and privately developed technology.

Says LES president Francois Painchaud: “[t]o move innovation from mind to marketplace requires complex systems of finance, law, and commerce. We must ensure that those systems promote, rather than hinder, innovation.”  I couldn’t agree more, Mr. Painchaud.  The press release can be read HERE, and the entire letter can be read HERE.

News of the letter and the call to improve the commercialization of IP comes at the same time that a very large move toward this goal was made on the West Coast at UC Berkeley, where a $127 million building formally opened on campus devoted to the commercialization of school technologies.  The building is one of its kind for this purpose, and sets a new standard for university tech transfer offices.