Licensing officers who work in tech transfer offices each have a portfolio of inventions they manage. For example, the Director of a tech transfer office might have a portfolio containing 350 inventions. The Director will vet them and decide what to do with them, plus handle the licensing, marketing and negotiating, and follow up with licensees on compliance issues.
When an invention is submitted that the tech transfer office decides it wants to patent, the documentation gets filed in a large invention database that contains information such as the subject matter of the invention and the date it was received. The database isn’t clogged up with all the minute details that can be found in the case file. The master database gives an overview of the status of each piece of intellectual property, including:
- Has the patent application been filed, and when?
- What is the status of the patenting process?
- Has the patent been issued?
- Is there marketing taking place?
- Has the licensing already been done?
The tech transfer office usually holds a staff meeting once a week that can last for a couple of hours, and participants will report on the progress they are making with more various inventions. This gives the director a sense of which investigator is doing what, and which directions their research is taking. They discuss whether the direction needs to be tweaked, and eventually, what the outcome is. These aren’t formal presentations – people simply give oral accounts of what they are working on that they think others might fine interesting or discuss difficulties they might be having with negotiations.
Because tech transfer is highly technical, licensing officers usually have a PhD in one of the life sciences. They are well-versed in recordkeeping and know how to carefully document their work.
When a licensing officer moves on to another position, their portfolio must be distributed to other people in the office to maintain continuity. Files are assigned to particular licensing officers based on their technical expertise and caseloads. Their caseloads must be manageable so important things aren’t overlooked and value isn’t lost.
Licensing officers have a lot to manage, including:
- If licensees are in or out of compliance
- If upcoming royalty distributions are being remitted on time
- Whether licensees are following the milestones that were laid out in the agreement
- Tracking the progress of negotiations and whether they are stalling out
- Identifying opportunities and doing the marketing