Moving Research into the Marketplace

Stanford is a source of new technologies for companies interested in developing revolutionary products. But technology transfer of early stage technologies is a challenge. Stanford’s 36 year history of licensing university research results to industry presents an interesting picture of some big wins and lots of “long tail” inventions.

Presenter(s)

Katharine Ku has been Director of the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) at Stanford University for over 15 years. She was Vice President, Business Development at Protein Design Labs, Inc. from 1990-1991. She has also worked at Monsanto, Sigma Chemical, University of California, and taught chemistry and basic engineering courses.

Ku has been active in the Licensing Executive Society (LES), having served as Vice President of the Western Region and Trustee. She also served as President of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) from 1988-90. She received the AUTM 2001 Bayh-Dole Award for her efforts in university licensing.

Ku has a B.S. Chemical Engineering (Cornell University), an M.S. in Chem. Eng. (Washington University in St. Louis) and is a registered patent agent.