Texas Comptroller Susan Combs has been named chair of the Texas Steering Committee for TechComm, a new endeavor that will secure patents and expand technology to enhance venture capital in the manufacturing and production industries.
The Technology Commercialization and Manufacturing (TechComm) project is focused on moving federal laboratory research results and technologies into the mainstream U.S. economy by building partnerships with universities, corporations, economic development entities and venture funds.
TechComm was launched by the Center for Innovation, a U.S. Department of Defense Partnership Intermediary. It will enlist up to 50 partners from eight states — Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. Combs will lead the Texas Steering Committee and work with other TechComm partners including the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
“This is a great opportunity for continued Texas economic development; our goal is to identify entities that can commercially produce the products and track technology transfers from conception to delivery to the marketplace,” Combs said. “This bold new model presents an exciting opportunity to bring high value jobs to our state.”
TechComm will represent 300 federal labs that spend more than $100 billion annually on research that has resulted in more than 10,000 patented technologies available for Patent Licensing Agreements. However, relatively few patents are actually licensed and commercialized. TechComm’s charge is to move technologies from federal labs to the marketplace with a model that is sustainable, replicable, scalable, and could serve as a national model for federal technology transfer.
To foster licensing of federal technologies, TechComm will build a network among federal agencies and labs with an objective of creating databases and search engines to spread information about licensing opportunities for patented technologies, invite proposals for research and develop agreements.
TechComm will also work directly with local entities to secure patents for federal lab-discovered technologies and identify technologies being developed at universities and private-sector industries that would be suitable for federal cooperative research and development agreements.
For more information on partnering opportunities with TechComm, visit www.thecenterforinnovation.org.
