Perfect Storm on Tech Transfer offices?

In my last post, I was talking about the effects of KSR on the world in general, and mentioned that I thought tech transfer offices may be about to have a bad day. Also mentioned the Medimmune case in conjunction with that.

In thinking more about that...it could be a really bad day for the universities on this front.

• NIH budget is declining.
• Number of researchers has been ramping up for years (due to doubling NIH budget).
  
• Cost of reagents has been increasing at greater than rate of inflation

SO

• Researchers need money

SO

• Look to licensing to fill hole with money (amongst many places)
  
• "Go to companies" - They are rich - take their cash

NOW

• Obviousness bar is lower
• Challenge to patents after taking a license is easier

SO

• Company may choose to may you come after them (belief in winning in court)
• University may offer cheap license to tempt company to take license rather than a court battle.

Bias against

• Big wins. The more money there is at stake, the more tempting that shot at the court case looks. If the universities keep their royalties down, to avoid rising to the "worth a challenge" level, they will keep their patents but they may not make very much money
• Licenses without most favored nation clauses. I probably won't ever sign another one. If someone else challenges, I want to reap the reward of the university bribing them to back off. This will have to happen at some point.
  

Other predictions

• Some University will go to court. One of them will think it can push it. I don't know if they will win or not, but it will set the tone for a lot of things. We will all watch that case VERY closely to see what happens. Much case law will be written in the next while here and it will matter a whole lot.
  

Ummmm....problem. Do I think this will come true? To some degree yes. I also think we will also see a lot of the fallout of their just plain being more licensing offices and more of a mandate to them to market their stuff. That leads to just plain more people chasing a money pool that isn't really growing that much. Each University will, therefor, get less cash.

As a side note to any who might think "but my University is, like, really good at licensing and we are world famous and we will totally be able to stomp out U. of Hicksville". NOT. I don't care what university you are. I need the IP. All your licenses prevent me from using your name anyway so it doesn't matter whether I license from Famous U. or U. Hicksville.

In any case - I am glad I don't run a University Tech Transfer office right now.

more on KSR

In my other post, written while I was still reading the decision, I sort of didn't say anything. Just posted the, to me, interesting bits of the decision.


Now, some things I think are going to shake out of this in no particular order.

• Less license income for Universities. I think this because a lot of what I see coming out is incremental improvements that involve heavy use of someone else's patents. This is precisely the stuff that the ruling goes after.
• MORE legal battles. I know I am emboldened today. I assume many others are as well. Someone is going to role the dice in court on this in a bigger way just to see what happens. Kind of hope it is us, but would guess someone will be cautious one here and back off.
• Put together with the previous ruling in the Medimmune case (and some commentary on it) , which essentially says that "A licensee in good standing can still challenge the validity of the patents" - I see licesors pushing for high up front fee's and licensees pushing back. The high upfronts dont make commercial sense if the technology doesn't work out but the licensor needs to worry about the attack on the patent. Given the lower bar to get it thrown out on obviousness, the attacks will be more frequent. OR the royalties I am willing to pay will be lower, as the cost to fight a patent is still a couple of million dollars and I may not want to bother.
• MORE INNOVATION. Many biotechs and pharmas are freaked about this BIO filed a brief in opposition to the way this came out. I think they are wrong, but I am in a different business than they are. I fight every day with the patent landscape. Cleaning up a lot of this crap and getting it out of the way will make my life a WHOLE lot better. We will push stuff out much faster if we can clear a lot of the cruft out the road. This will take a decade to come true, as that is the speed things move at, but a boy can dream.... I think the 1 patent 1 compound people will still have a defense if they truely did something. If not, they won't and there will be a problem. I leave that up to someone who knows that area to speak to (derek?)
• We will spend less on IP filings. If we apply a bit of a filter to our filings we could save money. We won't of course... we will keep on going the way we have been going and see what the patent office does to them. My hope is that they start kicking more back and that we get a chance to actual weed our garden. As long as it isn't happening to us only, it is good. If everyone's garden gets weeded, there will be space to actually ship product.
  
• This will help, I think, Diagnostics a lot more than it helps Pharma and biotech. The diagnostics world, as it moves toward molecular diagnostics, is a patent mess. Cleaning that up will help this transition a whole lot more. Pharma and biotech are pitching companies with smaller amounts of IP coverage that if they don't have it they have nothing. That increased level of risk will make them harder to get funded. Diagnostic companies, on the other hand, are generally not bringing IP to the table and are instead trying to duck dodge and weave around it (or exclude everyone else from using the IP they do have.)
  

That LinkedIn thing....

In my post on finding the new frustration of 10+ years, and the hidden fact that there is always another barrier to getting really cool jobs, I talked about LinkedIn and the fact that I was using that.

I got questions about that, so here are answers (I'm generous that way... or bored with nothing to do, I leave that as an exercise for the reader).

LinkedIn is one of those social networking sites. Given that you know someones name and email address, you should be able to send them an invite and you two get linked together. Were you linked to me (and Bill, we should sort that out) you would be able to see everyone that I know (who is also a LinkedIn member) and, if you wanted to get a job to them you could try and use me to put you in touch with them. If they like me (slim hope...) and I like you then it should help to get your resume in front of them. Given the HR filter that stops a lot of resumes, there is value in this.

I also have used it in the past to find people in companies. Given an introduction from someone they know, I get farther on the first call than I might otherwise. It works for that, and I have used it for that a lot.

For jobs....no data yet. No leads yet. But that is true of every other method I am trying and is also likely some fallout from the fact that I am impatient and have only been really looking for 1 week. We will see how things shake out....

Is LinkedIn necessary to get ahead in business. Probably not, but I do see an awful lot of people in our industry in there. Can it help you get a job. Probably. Anything that gets you in front of people is worth trying. Sure beats spamming Monster.com as a strategy.

Outsourcing...

I just read on Derek's blog that a commenter got on him about recommending an outsourced solution. The people in question were going to do work in India and the commenter was on Derek about, essentially, "Didn't that just cause you to lose your job? Why are you encouraging this?".

Dereks response of, 1 - that didn't cause me to lose my job and 2- You better learn to deal with outsourced competition as it is here to stay and free trade is a good idea.

I would just expand on this a bit, as we are seeing a bit of this in our industry as well.

We moved our manufacturing out of California for tax and cost reasons. Did we move it far enough? No idea, but will flat out tell you that we are always looking. There is the cost of moving a plant and starting up and disruption VS. the labor cost you have to bear. You have to do this math, and keep doing this math, or you will get your lunch eaten by a competitor who is doing this math. That is why they pay me and people like me and all the operations people. Costs matter to making a profit. Want to make a profit, make sure you watch your costs.

Derek's point that soon Indians will be griping about the next low cost place is wrong (he uses Pakistan and Bangladesh in his example). It is wrong because he uses the future tense. It is the present tense. Hyderabad for software development is no longer the cheapest high quality code writing place. We use a company there and I know what there cost increases have looked like. I also know the services they have started adding on to our work so that they break out of the "low bidder" hand cuffs. You have to be more than low bidder if you want to keep the work, and they have learned that. In addition, if you are trying to just make it as low bidder, you have to make sure and keep your employees dirt poor and in low demand. The second they get educated they will start asking to be paid and your costs will go up. As a side light to this "education" thing, they will also become a whole ton better as workers. Your quality will go up and you will be able to ask for more money from your customers. BUT - you have to accept that there will now be some other part of the world that is way cheaper than you.

I am with Derek on the whole free trade thinger. It is only by bringing everyone up to our standard of living that we can sell stuff to them and then hope to fight to bring jobs back here.

We have been fighting this boogy man for a lot of years. Wasn't Japan supposed to eat our Lunch (90's). You know...it sort of turned out that they weren't superman after all. They do some stuff better than us and some stuff not as well. The better stuff, they are kicking our butts at. The other stuff, we win. This is, I think, good and healthy.

KSR vs. Teleflex

Today the supreme court handed down a ruling in the KSR vs. Teleflex case. Many of us having been watching that for quite awhile and the ruling is set to break new ground. Some links first : The ruling and Some Commentary and some other commentary, and more commentary, and some other commentary. Reading the ruling (where as I described in my previous post they only talk about the claims, and only claim 4 at that) and the commentary (which also only talks about claim 4) shows you how this obviousness thing is shaking out.

Leaving aside the discussion of pedals, which doesn't really matter, we get to a couple of pretty good quotes for consideration.

As just a starting point

We begin by rejecting the rigid approach of the Court of Appeals. Throughout this Court's engagement with the question of obviousness, our cases have set forth an expansive and flexible approach inconsistent with the way the Court of Appeals applied its TSM test here.

****The TSM test was the test for teaching, suggestion, or motivation. We worry about this a lot. The court explains is thusly,

Seeking to resolve the question of obviousness with more uniformity and consistency, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has employed an approach referred to by the parties as the “teaching, suggestion, or motivation” test (TSM test), under which a patent claim is only proved obvious if “some motivation or suggestion to combine the prior art teachings” can be found in the prior art, the nature of the problem, or the knowledge of a person having ordinary skill in the art. See, e.g., Al-Site Corp. v. VSI

and then a lay out of really where they want to set the lines.

For over a half century, the Court has held that a “patent for a combination which only unites old elements with no change in their respective functions . . . obviously withdraws what is already known into the field of its monopoly and diminishes the resources available to skillful men.” Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket Equipment Corp., 340 U. S. 147, 152 (1950). This is a principal reason for declining to allow patents for what is obvious. The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results. Three cases decided after Graham illustrate the application of this doctrine.

In United States v. Adams, 383 U. S. 39, 40 (1966), a companion case to Graham, the Court considered the obviousness of a “wet battery” that varied from prior designs in two ways: It contained water, rather than the acids conventionally employed in storage batteries; and its electrodes were magnesium and cuprous chloride, rather than zinc and silver chloride. The Court recognized that when a patent claims a structure already known in the prior art that is altered by the mere substitution of one element for another known in the field, the combination must do more than yield a predictable result. 383 U. S., at 50–51. It nevertheless rejected the Government’s claim that Adams’s battery was obvious. The Court relied upon the corollary principle that when the prior art teaches away from combining certain known elements, discovery of a successful means of combining them is more likely to be nonobvious. Id., at 51–52. When Adams designed his battery, the prior art warned that risks were involved in using the types of electrodes he employed. The fact that the elements worked together in an unexpected and fruitful manner supported the conclusion that Adams’s design was not obvious to those skilled in the art.

In Anderson’s-Black Rock, Inc. v. Pavement Salvage Co., 396 U. S. 57 (1969), the Court elaborated on this approach.

The subject matter of the patent before the Court was a device combining two pre-existing elements: a radiant-heat burner and a paving machine. The device, the Court concluded, did not create some new synergy: The radiant-heat burner functioned just as a burner was expected to function; and the paving machine did the same. The two in combination did no more than they would in separate, sequential operation. Id., at 60–62. In those circumstances, “while the combination of old elements performed a useful function, it added nothing to the nature and quality of the radiant-heat burner already patented,” and the patent failed under §103. Id., at 62 (footnote omitted).

Finally, in Sakraida v. AG Pro, Inc., 425 U. S. 273 (1976), the Court derived from the precedents the conclusion that when a patent “simply arranges old elements with each performing the same function it had been known to perform” and yields no more than one would expect from such an arrangement, the combination is obvious. Id., at 282.

The principles underlying these cases are instructive when the question is whether a patent claiming the combination of elements of prior art is obvious. When a work is available in one field of endeavor, design incentives and other market forces can prompt variations of it, either in the same field or a different one. If a person of ordinary skill can implement a predictable variation, §103 likely bars its patentability. For the same reason, if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill. Sakraida and Anderson’s-Black Rock are illustrative -- a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions.

This is interesting as it is setting up where they (supreme court) philosophically fall on the matter.

This is what will really stand a lot of biological patents being pursued/issued today on it's head.

As our precedents make clear, however, the analysis need not seek out precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ.

This means that if a technician would have thought of it, you likely shouldn't get a patent on it. This is huge for getting rid of a lot of the combination patents that are being pursued (admittedly by us as well as others...). They get right to the heart of this combination business as well, stating...

When it first established the requirement of demonstrating a teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine known elements in order to show that the combination is obvious, the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals captured a helpful insight. See Application of Bergel, 292 F. 2d 955, 956–957 (1961). As is clear from cases such as Adams, a patent composed of several elements is not proved obvious merely by demonstrating that each of its elements was, independently, known in the prior art. Although common sense directs one to look with care at a patent application that claims as innovation the combination of two known devices according to their established functions, it can be important to identify a reason that would have prompted a person of ordinary skill in the relevant field to combine the elements in the way the claimed new invention does. This is so because inventions in most, if not all, instances rely upon building blocks long since uncovered, and claimed discoveries almost of necessity will be combinations of what, in some sense, is already known.

....So making known mutations that give expected results may not actually be patentable.

When a work is available in one field of endeavor, design incentives and other market forces can prompt variations of it, either in the same field or a different one. If a person of ordinary skill can implement a predictable variation, §103 likely bars its patentability. For the same reason, if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill. Sakraida and Anderson’s-Black Rock are illustrative -- a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions.

and just before it,

Finally, in Sakraida v. AG Pro, Inc., 425 U. S. 273 (1976), the Court derived from the precedents the conclusion that when a patent “simply arranges old elements with each performing the same function it had been known to perform” and yields no more than one would expect from such an arrangement, the combination is obvious. Id., at 282.

which really hits at making expected mutations and getting expected results.

This is, in total, a pretty interesting ruling. How will it affect our patent filing strategy? No idea. We will likely wait and see what the patent office does. It will certainly affect our litigation strategy, as it opens up all new ways to attack patents. For those where we are the defendent, we are happy. For those where we are the plantiff, we are sad. There will be a period here where we all try and figure out the new rules. I would expect to see someone (hopefully not us) bet huge on some interpretation and lose big. I would expect most of the rest of us to hedge a bit. I may give in on some issues a bit more quickly. I would expect to push a bit further/harder on other issues. We will see... in the mean time, I expect that a lot of biotech patent people are all reading this as hard as I am. Anyone not reading it...I would love to do a deal with you.

Patent Analysis- Its all about the claims folks....

I have been reading a lot of computer people talk about patent's. Here, at ArsTechnica, is the latest example that made me want to write this post. Timothy B. Lee goes on in the post and talks about the Verizon patents that cover voice over IP. In his discussion of the patents, he never talks about the actual claims.

He talks about the background. He talks about the general patent and market landscape. Never once does he talk about the actual claims of the patent.

The claims are the only part that matters. They are the part you sue someone for. They are the part the court interprets. They are the part that you file your obviousness challenge on. The only reason for the rest of the patent to be written at all is to support your claims. If you can't point to at least 1 part of a sentence in your background that supports your claim, then you don't get the claim allowed by the patent office. Once the support for a claim is shown to be there, then the background doesn't matter. The claims control what limitations are on the interpretation, and what is covered. You can't sue someone because of something that is in the methods section. Only the claims.

You can have a background section that is totally obvious and says nothing at all ground breaking. Given his description of the patents in question, they likely do have that. BUT - the claims are all that matters. Read those. Parse those. Figure those out. Any time that the claims use a tortuous definition, you get to look back into the body of the patent and see how that term was defined. It is only by doing this very long and tortured analysis that you can say, with any certainty, what a patent does and does not cover. Given that information, you can then say whether or not it is, or is not, obvious.

His article references the KSR v. Teleflex ruling that the supreme court was going to hand down. They have done so, and I will talk about that next.

The 10+ year hurdle

As previously mentioned, I have sold my way out of a job. I am, in the course of things, interviewing for positions at the company that is acquiring us and I have a pretty good track record to point at (I mean...you just bought us...that has to be worth something!). I continue to get paid and go to work every day and I will, likely, fingers crossed, in due course, get an interesting job from the acquiror. I equally likely will have to switch cities I live in to do it. My wife is not that psyched about that idea. She, however, likes me moping the around the house being a grumpy pain in the rear even less.

So - I have also started to hit the job circuit in a big way. The core question being - can I find a really cool job that pays me as well as I currently am and that doesn't require me to move. If it does require me to move, will it have a better package than I think I can expect from the folks who bought us?

NO

at least not yet. I have fired up every recruiter I know (a non-small number) and have started spamming my resume to former friends. My LinkedIn network has been activated to find stuff. Things are afoot. Phone interviews have already started. BUT....

10+ years industry experience

is on every job that I am currently interested in. HR people seem stuck on this. I am routing around them, but they are a bit of block on the recruiter path. The recruiters I know well are pushing through this but it is still there. I live in fear of having to do a boring job.

I can't believe I have only been out of graduate school for 6 years. Grrrrrrr....

The process of being acquired...

For those reading from the academic side and living in fear of what an acquisition means, I thought I would talk a little bit about that.

I have been involved in this acquisition for quite a while and couldn't talk. Besides any other world problems, the SEC would have frowned on the revelation and thrown me in jail. It has been a bit surreal to, for example, go to meetings and talk about long term plans that I happen to know full well won't happen (or might now happen or whatever). Up until the day before announcement I was leading this double life - The public face is no different and was setting up things. The other 1/2 was working all night (both literally and figuratively) to get the company sold. I lied to, approximately, everyone. That was getting very old. I had been doing that for about 3 months or so and it was old...

SO - now we have announced and are in the period between announcement and actual close of deal. There are filings with the SEC going on to get their blessing that there is not an anti-trust problem. There are meetings to figure out how, post close, to integrate the two businesses.

We are a bit lucky in that we were bought for our manufacturing and our R+D. Our sites most likely won't be shut down, as we aren't duplicative of anything they already have. Were there mass shutdowns in the future, this would have a very different feel. As it is, the number of of us who are facing unemployment is small. Unfortunately, I am one of them. Post close, the role I have now will be gone. I have known this from when I started working on this, but really pushed it out of my head. Now, when I really have little to do, it is first and foremost in my mind again. I have fired up the recruiters and am looking around within the acquiring company for positions of interest. I made a favorable impression on the acquiring folks, so there is a lot of support for finding me something...but you still have to do it. Don't have it done yet. Stress exists. Are we moving again? I have some quasi permission from my wife to move us if we have to, but I have to say that San Diego is pretty much the best place on the planet to live (obviously-my opinion. Your mileage may/will vary.)

For the rest of the people in the company - there is a lot of unknowns. I know that they will likely come out OK, but until the close happens and full sets of plans can be developed and spelled out for folks, there is a lot of uncertainty. Uncertainty is not good...

It is funny that in the middle of this, I go read this over at ars technica. Lay offs and uncertainty are all over the place. Academics are just getting used to this idea. Don't know that it is easier in industry or if you are just supposed to expect it more - but it is beat all around.

In any case - I am still here and fighting to find a new job. The company is chugging ahead on momentum as I don't think most people have really stopped and thought about it yet. Part of (and it is a huge part of it) my job is to not let them stop and think about it, as they are OK. Lets stay on target with projects and get products launched. Not much else to do anyway.... I know I'm dead, but I know they aren't. I've known I was dead for awhile though and have been really saving money in order to get through a dry spell if it comes to that.

Fun? I am still having it.

Acquired....

We just announced our intention to be acquired on Friday. I have been working on this for a long while and am pretty relieved to be on to the next step. BUT - oh wow... they didn't teach you about this in grad school.

I will write more when my hang over wears off, as I am pretty happy!

Rules for Industry

These are great rules. I didn't write them (obviously) but wow - they nail it. Hadn't really thought about writing these, but am really glad someone did.

Wow

I live under a log. I just don't think like this search committee did ( and follow up). About 50% of the folks at my level are female (depends how you score a couple of people, both men and women). There is only 1 level above me (and it is small and 2/3 male). I just can't comprehend this and would kind of be dumbstruck if it was said in a meeting about hiring someone. I sit through a lot (way way way way too many) hiring meetings, and this just doesn't come up. I don't think we are particularly enlightened. I don't even look at myself as particularly PC, but wow.

FemaleScienceProfessor is a great blog that continues to remind me that this still goes on. I, being male, am not affected by it directly. That said, I don't even see this stuff going on around me (which would be indirectly...). The best scientist at our company, and this is something the CEO (male) has said publicly many times (and he is not just blowing smoke, she is) is female. For what she works on I would say she is the best in the world but no one knows it outside of some industry folks (this relates to where our patent apps are years ahead of academic science....).

Good to have a blog that continues to show this happening.

Will they all hate me?

From my comments back here....A question about leaving the academic world behind...

However, I would like to ask you: how did you deal with the contemptuous attitude of your advisor and peers when you mention that perhaps a different job (in my case a sales rep position) might better your understanding of business in the biotech and/or pharma industry. You comments on this would be highly appreciated.

By the way: You blog came up when I did a google search on info on what to do with my PhD. Thank you. Your are making my life much happier, together with www.phdcomics.com

Also, I have a very similar story about finishing up. My significant other is also telling me that I would hate myself if I don't finish.

Couple of things. Bill, who commented on your questions, used to work with me. He in fact picked up my project when I graduated. So, at least one person still talks to me... I would say that amongst my direct peers I did not get any "attitude". A lot of questions (and that continues to this day) but no attitude. From my adviosor...whether I had stayed in academia or not he and I didn't part on the best of terms. His opinion, at the end of the day, was irrelevant to me. My departmental chairmans opinion, on the other hand, was a bit harder to stomach. He was, essentially, done with me. There were several other faculty that felt/acted this way. It's too bad really, but I have to say that I sort of expected it and didn't care.

I will say, though, that I DIDNT talk about what I was going to do next. I didn't bounce the idea off of them or anything like that. As I got real close to graduation and people directly asked, I answered that "I didn't have anything lined up but was looking to industry". That set people back, but I was essentially already out the door so the uncomfortable overlap was pretty short. I keep in touch with a couple of people from Grad school. None of the faculty, just some of my peers.

It will happen. I knew it and didn't care. Think you have to have that attitude.

With regard to finishing. I wasn't happy to hear it from her at the time becuase she was totally right and I was totally miserable. Hang in there.

String at EMBL

This site, which I read about here, is cool. In my looking at gene expression panels as prognostic markers in cancer (something I do for a living these days) this will prove most useful. I had written, and had others write, many tools to help me. Several are like this, but worse. I like finding new cool things to use!

New blog that I found

Found Jonathan Eisen's blog where he is complaining about (he removed the company name but I saw it before then...). Read the rest of his blog. Interesting stuff. Worth reading.

Circle of life....

One of the many things I heard at AUTM was the need for Universities to find alternative funding sources now that the NIH budget was drying up. Many of those people took time to find me and pass me their card in the thought that I might be that source.

Given my last post on the matter, which is actually your problem to begin with, you have to realize that the sales of research reagents will fall. Since they will fall, I will have less money to spend. A nasty little link where your problem becomes my problem, which means I can't solve your problem.

Given the diagnostic side of things, where I am also active, there is money there. BUT there are many many many fewer things that I license for diagnostics vs. our research business. There are just more research tools and they are easier to launch in to the market. Diagnostics have long lead times and large amounts of cash needed per launch. Research tools are easy.

SO - the diagnostic business has money in it, but for very few projects. Research tools has no money, but needs lots of projects.

next couple of years should be interesting.

Buzz Kill....

Stories like this are not what a person who is in the research tools market likes to read. You can assume that our income matches that NIH funding levels. This isn't a news flash to me, as I worry about this a lot, but that was a nice summary of all of my worries written in a better manner than I can write it.

To any AUTM people left over coming here from the last post....you should figure that it will affect my ability to license....more about that in my next post.

some other AUTM observations...

Another comment I didn't make, but wanted to, while in the audience.

• Question asked by some University guy - "Why are so many companies looking overseas? Is is just cheaper?"

My answer, but I had already asked 1 question in that session, would have been NO - cheaper hasn't been the driver for me. I will, and do, go where the technology is. The overseas countries (and I am US based in case that wasn't blindingly obvious) have been investing a whole lot in their research. In terms of things I can license, this is paying off. We have done several deals with German universities this year already. Last year we were over 50% ex US in our licenses. Mostly Europe, in it's broadest definition, but also a couple from India. 1 from South Africa (and yes, that totally surprised me too when we found it...).

I don't think, but am too lazy to pull all the financials, that the licences from oversease were cheaper than good ole USA ones. I don't think they were easier to do. They certainly made me get up earlier in the morning as to do conference calls with them requires an early start to the day from California. If they were cheaper, it is a matter of a small degree as It didn't lodge in my head.

The panel IBM and Intel folks did answer the question and didn't bring up cost in their answers either.

AUTM meeting

I was just at the AUTM meeting in San Francisco. For those not "in the know" AUTM is the association of university technology managers. Basically the tech transfer office, although I learned there is quite a bit more to it than that.

I served on a panel at the meeting on the first day, which was interesting, and then through out the meeting popped up at a variety of sessions and failed to keep my mouth shut.

The main things I took from the meeting.

• A question was asked by our industry panel on the first day of "What is the University tech transfer offices mission?". I can now say, having sat through many sessions, that every one of the offices has a seperate mission. Many are partly over lapping, and they all have some core in common but there are some pretty big differences. Some places are just tech transfer. Nothing more or less. Others have a mandate to do local area development. i.e. serve as an economic stimulator for the local economy. Others are deeply involved in building translation facilties to really make the technology come out of the university in a way that is much closer to early stage industry work. Much spread. This really does drive me to start asking a series of questions now when I deal with them - starting with "what is your goal". I had been operating on the assumption that it was to license out technology. Now understand that they may, and likely do, have other goals.
• The tech transfer people really have no clue about industry trends. This was highlighted on the second day when the harvard guy was talking about the fact that Harvard is building a facility to do hit screening on compounds and pointed out that Pharma is moving away from that early stage discovery and has been looking to biotech to do that work. Biotech, under pressure from VC's, has been moving away from that slowly. I would say the Harvard guy was right, and as he and I talked about afterwards (he knew this) it has been going on in Pharma this way for several years. The surprising bit was the number of other people in the room who came from large research institutes who did NOT know this fact and had been wondering why Pharma wanted to pay much less for early stage targets.
  
• The decision process within many tech transfer offices on how to pursue patents is NOT driven by what could, today, be licensable. Specifically, many folks were talking about licencing gene panels for diagnostics. This is something I am very interested in doing. They all said "Can't be done" and no one will pay for it. They based this on "the head of the office saying so". My response of "it can be done, and we have done it, and I will pay for it" surprised them. My follow up of once you put it in the public domain you likely kill the market also surprised them.
  
• There are a lot of old white guys in charge....and a lot of woman not in charge. This was probably most clearly show cased by the fact that they gave everyone a free neck tie. Leaving aside the lack of color coordination that my tie had, it is not a very useful gift for a woman. You can make as assumption that she can give it to a significant other if you want to move to a new, and higher, level of sexism. I leave that as an exercise to the reader but I do think it wasn't well done.
• You can't carry bottle openers on a plane. For serving on a panel I was given a wine bottle carrier and a bottle opener. I didn't even look in the bag and just put it in my luggage to carry home. The security guy at the airport was not that understanding...

BUT - the biggest take home message that I got from it was that industry and tech transfer offices really need to do more to understand each other. The things I go through were alien to them. The time pressures, the reason for IP etc.... they sort of got but not so much. On the other side, there was quite a bit that they go through that I don't get. The local development impetus - the number of people who have to sign off, the control from the state/local government were all things that I didn't fully apreciate.

Overall, a really good meeting. Hoping I didn't burn bridges, but I do have a big mouth....

Fish nor Fowl....

Over at "In the pipeline" he is talking about "hybrid" folks. By this he means those who do both chemistry and biology, and there is a bit of worry about whether or not they will be able to get jobs afterwards. He thinks academia will be more open to these folks than industry. I don't really know enough about this to comment on his example, but I would suggest a seperate example.

Bioinformatics.

Recently, I was asked and answered about a woman who got a degree in bioinformatics and what should she do. I don't think I was overwhelmingly helpful to her, but I do think it points to the exact oppisate problem that Derek is talking about. I think the Bioinformatics degree is TOO specialized and not broadly useful. I think bioinformatics in the context of doing biology is good, but the bioinformatician has to (in my opinion) understand biology. They need to understand it at the bench level. In my view of the world, and I have worked with and managed several bioinformaticians, I have to say that I think the best ones were at one point bench biologists. They just seem to have a better grasp of the real biology behind the scenes. One can do a lot of math on things, but if you don't know what you are really modelling and whether or not that is real then I think you have problems.

Pure Bioinformaticians lack this.

Pure Bench biologists don't, as a general rule, have the programming skills necessary to code this. Most of us also don't have the math to get it done and make do by building a team of biologist/project manager/developer (with the project manager getting the boot a lot of the time). The project manager's job is to "translate" biology to computer and back again.

SO - This is sort of the flip of what Derek is talking about. Here, the bioinformaticians started as the hybrid folks, evolved to a "pure" version, and I think they have more problems now than they did before.

Scientists and boxes

Over here at Defective Yeti is a post you should read. Let me restate that... you should read all of his posts becuase they are really funny. Even his very serious ones are well written so while not funny are worth reading.

In any case, on this post further down is a comment that I will reprint here becuase I like the conclusion (I bolded it for those who just want to skip ahead.)

Did you listen to last weekend's This American Life? It was a repeat, but there was a story about an experiment a psychologist did on children around the age where they're chummy with the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. The psychologist put a box in the center of the room and told the children that there was NOT a monster in the box. Then he left the room, and the children scooted away from the box. In a second experiment the psychologist told the children that a puppy was not in the box. When the psychologist left the room, the children went to look in the box.

Sounds like 1) People don't grow up 2)Scientists get their kicks by putting boxes in the middle of rooms and telling lies.