← Innovation & International Collaboration College

Technology Transfer & Commercialization Department

The Technology Transfer & Commercialization Department teaches the practice of moving research innovations into industry through licensing, partnerships, and knowledge exchange. Students learn patent landscaping, prior-art searches, technology valuation, and deal structuring through case exercises, and study intellectual-property portfolio management, graduating and entering the workforce with real experience brokering and sitting at the negotiating table for technology-licensing agreements and collaborative research agreements (CRAs).

⚙️ GeoAcademy System Administration College 🖥️ AI & Computing Sciences College 🔬 Basic Sciences College ⚡ Intelligent Geophysical Exploration College 🛢️ Resource & Energy Engineering College 🌍 Applied Geoscience Solutions College 💼 Economics, Policy & Strategy for the Future College 🎓 Education & Training Development College 🚀 Innovation & International Collaboration College

Innovation Hub & Open R&D Department Technology Transfer & Commercialization Department International Partnership & Cooperation Department Startup Incubation & Entrepreneurship Department Horizon Scanning & Tech Intelligence Center

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⭐ Tesla

Chair

💡 Technology Transfer & Invention Commercialization

Researchers (real GeoVerse Lab members) 13

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1904–1999

Giles S. Rich

Researcher

💡 Co-authored the Patent Act of 1952 and, as the longest-serving federal appellate judge, shaped the modern doctrine of patentability (non-obviousness) that governs what technologies can be patented

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1900–1989

John Burr Williams

Researcher

💡 Founded discounted cash flow valuation theory, the analytical foundation for modern technology and IP valuation methods used in licensing deals

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1845–1920

Theodore Newton Vail

Researcher

💡 Architected AT&T's patent licensing and royalty strategy for Bell's telephone patents, establishing the deal-structuring template for large-scale technology licensing negotiations

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1923–2012

Gerard I. Nierenberg

Researcher

💡 Founded the modern discipline of negotiation theory with The Art of Negotiating (1968) and established the Negotiation Institute, systematizing win-win deal-structuring methods used in licensing negotiations

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1928–2019

Birch Bayh

Researcher

💡 Co-authored the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which allowed universities to own and license patents from federally funded research, creating the modern legal foundation for collaborative and sponsored research agreements

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1923–2021

Bob Dole

Researcher

💡 Co-authored the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 with Birch Bayh, directly creating the institutional and legal conditions that led every major research university to establish a technology transfer office

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1872–1961

Learned Hand

Researcher

💡 As one of the most influential U.S. appellate judges never to sit on the Supreme Court, authored foundational opinions shaping American trade secret and unfair competition doctrine

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1927–2012

George Rathmann

Researcher

💡 Founded Amgen, pioneering the equity-licensing model where a biotech startup licenses academic/research IP in exchange for founder equity, becoming the template for biotech spin-off commercialization

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1906–1968

Chester Carlson

Researcher

💡 Invented xerography and, after being rejected by over 20 companies, licensed it to Haloid (later Xerox), a landmark case study in patient IP-strategy execution and patent portfolio commercialization

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1926–2023

Paul Berg

Researcher

💡 Pioneered recombinant DNA technology, whose subsequent patenting and licensing (the Cohen-Boyer patents) by Stanford's technology transfer office became the founding case study of biotechnology technology transfer

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1932–2025

Frederic M. Scherer

Researcher

💡 Founded the empirical economics of patents and industrial organization, quantitatively analyzing how patent systems, licensing, and antitrust policy interact to shape innovation incentives

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1919–2004

Árpád Bogsch

Researcher

💡 Directed the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for over two decades and architected the modern international IP treaty system (Patent Cooperation Treaty, Madrid System) enabling cross-border technology transfer

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1874–1962

Owen D. Young

Researcher

💡 Founded RCA specifically to organize a patent pool and cross-licensing agreement among GE, Westinghouse, and AT&T, establishing the template for resolving overlapping patent claims through consortium licensing