UWS visits Intellectual Ventures in Seattle

UWS Innovation dropped in to Seattle to Intellectual Ventures (IV) headquarters while in the US this month. It may be wet, cold and grey in Seattle, but the blossom trees outside the IV building believe it is Spring – beautiful.

UWS has a signed agreement with IV to jointly develop new inventions, and it was fascinating to see the depth and breadth of the undertaking based in Seattle. Having been established for a number of years, IV now has 800 people across its various teams and in addition to its US headquarters, has a footprint in 8 other countries, including Australia.

The tour of the separate IV laboratory was a real eye opener, focused on some fascinating global good projects utilising Bill Gates foundation funding. The photo above of Nicole Bates from IV with Michael Manion of Invention Evaluator (Australia) who toured the facility with me, shows a prototype in the Cold Chain project. This project aims to solve the cold chain problem of maintaining the viability of vaccines being delivered into underdeveloped countries, many of which struggle to deliver vaccines which are still useful at the point of injection.

IV’s co-founder, Nathan Myhrvold, also produced a significant sized “cook book” which takes a very different scientific look at food and cooking equipment to your usual food technologist or domestic chef. This book, “Modernist Cuisine” took 4 lbs of ink to print! Fiona Cameron, Ass. Director of UWS Innovation and Michael Manion are picture at the test kitchen with 2 of the experimental chefs.

UWS researchers who are interested in finding out more about our relationship with IV should contact UWS Innovation on ip@uws.edu.au.

Invention Workshop allows UWS researchers and students opportunity to pitch their ideas

UWS Innovation and Intellectual ventures (IV) jointly hosted an Invention Workshop for a select group of UWS researchers and honours students, where attendees were able to pitch their research and ideas to a small group of technology investors for feedback.

In addition to Dr Scott Needham from IV Australia, a special guest on the panel was Dr James Wang, Director of Invention Development at IV China. James is responsible for the Physical Science Group, and before joining IV was founder of several start-ups in Silicon Valley and Shanghai. Prior to that, James was a senior scientist and manager at Pfizer, working on biomaterials and medical device development.

With billions of dollars under management, IV are specialists at assessing and investing in some of the world’s most promising and cutting edge inventions.

Honours students Chris Godfrey, Simon McElduff and Linren Zhou presented their idea for the development of a novel two-way-shape memory polymer matrix, while Dr Grace Yan from Civionics/School of Engineering pitched her idea on wireless structural monitoring.
James and Scott provided invaluable feedback in regard to material selections, developing a business case, and attracting investors and collaborators.

The workshop was a great success and confirms UWS’s growing capability in developing innovative ideas.

UWS IP commercialisation pathways expand

UWS and Intellectual Ventures (IV) have entered into an agreement that will provide UWS with an additional avenue for the commercialisation of intellectual property (IP). UWS I&C’s current strategies for the commercialisation of IP may involve licensing, spin-outs or joint ventures. These avenues are the normal routes for university IP to reach the market and provide community benefit. They are resource intensive but essential for the University to have the greatest chance of reaping maximum return from its research efforts.

IV invests in early stage ideas and inventions that, in isolation, may appear to have limited value. Through its large network of innovative contributors and technological expertise, IV is able to bundle inventions into portfolios so that their value may be realised by a worldwide network that is seeking solutions to identified problems.

All invention disclosures from within UWS are initially screened by the Innovation team at UWS I&C and assessed via a rigorous evaluation process. The IV model provides an alternative path to market which enables the University to potentially harvest IP income and take a larger number of inventions to the world from inventive, pre-patent ideas than we might have otherwise.

The IV model includes engagement with chosen research groups in the University to alert them to identified areas of industry need and training in new ways of generating ideas. An inventor’s early stage idea has an opportunity to flourish, with the possibility of immediate cash return and potential growing returns to both the inventor and UWS over time.

This platform is an additional avenue for academic inventiveness to reach a successful commercialisation outcome for UWS research, inventions, and ideas.