University technology transfer offices license inventions created at universities to companies looking for tools, additions to their product pipelines, improvements or start-up opportunities. This paper will cover the motivations for conducting university technology transfer, an overview of Stanford’s Office of Technology Licensing and its patenting and licensing practices, models of royalty sharing at university technology transfer offices, and patenting and licensing genetic information inventions at Stanford University. The terms ‘invention’ and ‘technology’ are used interchangeably throughout the paper.

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Fostering innovation for the bene fi t of society is part of the mission of Stanford's Of fi ce of Technology Licensing (OTL); "To promote the transfer of Stanford technology for society's use and bene fi t while generating unrestricted income to support research and education." Throughout Stanford's history, researchers' drive to innovate formed Stanford into the active and prominent academic institution that it is today. To help understand the role of Stanford's OTL in this system, this chapter reviews OTL's history, policies, and practices. We provide some attributes that help OTL be successful in transferring technologies that will bene fi t the public, as well as examples of how OTL works with startups to move the technologies out from Stanford into companies. These companies might then produce new products that will bene fi t the world. Stanford's BackgroundStanford's history is steeped in innovation. One of the people who seeded and formed our university's ecosystem and surrounding environment is Frederick Terman, former Professor, Dean, and Provost of the university. Professor Terman had a long history with Stanford, having moved to the university when his father took a faculty position. Following in his father's professorial footsteps, he eventually became a faculty member at Stanford in the Electrical Engineering Department.Professor Terman realized that California did not have many jobs for engineering graduates, so he helped to provide and build opportunities for such jobs, including

Stanford University's Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) has a long history of licensing technologies to biotechnology start-up companies. This paper presents (1) examples of how the OTL works with biotechnology start-ups to negotiate licence agreements for Stanfordowned intellectual property, taking into account a new company's scarce financial resources and needs but their large intellectual property appetite; and (2) an analysis of the rate of success of biotechnology companies emerging from Stanford based on information obtained from the equity records at Stanford's OTL. OTL started taking equity more often in start-up companies in the mid-1990s and generally takes equity as part of most exclusive licences to early-stage companies.

Diversity is a key driver of innovation and a critical component of success on a global scale. Countries that deploy strategies to foster greater inclusion of all inventors in the innovation lifecycle will ultimately be best positioned to maximize their gross domestic product and ensure economic prosperity. The U.S is losing ground because it is not fully engaging a significant portion of the inventive talent pool. According to a 2019 report from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, the share of women among all U.S. inventor-patentees is only 12.8%.In an effort to understand factors that encouraged and discouraged academic women’s participation in technology commercialization, a group of Technology Transfer professionals conducted a survey of academic women involved in innovation, invention and/or entrepreneurship. The 168 respondents were from public and private research institutions of varying sizes from all regions of the United States. This paper outlines the key findings from the qualitative and quantitative data around the themes that emerged. It also puts forth a set of recommendations based on the survey feedback, follow-up interviews, and the collective experience of Technology Transfer professionals who work daily with academic innovators. It is our hope that these recommendations will provide valuable insights into concrete actions that can be taken to ensure systemic changes that foster greater engagement of academic women and other under-represented populations in all stages of the innovation lifecycle.