Faculty start-up companies

Faculty start-up companies can license University owned technologies. OTMIR staff work directly with faculty start-up companies interested in licensing University technologies which the faculty member invented.

Technologies are licensed on an individual basis, and must be previously disclosed to OTMIR through the normal disclosure process. Non-disclosed or "future" technologies are not the proper subject of a license. Faculty start-up companies will be evaluated using basic criteria for outside licensees. These basic criteria include:

• A realistic business plan with "hard" numbers for marketing the invention
• A long term plan for developing and marketing the product in defined technical and geographic areas
• Experience in the field of the invention
• Enterpreneur with a vested interest in seeing the invention progress from initial prototype to final product
• Ability to commercialize products or services

Licensing a technology is contingent on the following factors :

• Nature of the technology
• Level of business interest generated by the technology
• The length of time the technology has been patented
• Existing competitors
• Required capital investment
• The "window of opportunity" for potential products
• Market factors such as: fragmentation, distributions, point of entry, market size, dominant players, etc.
• The capabilities and past performance of the potential licensee