Licensing Fosters Entrepreneurs

If there’s one thing educators, lawmakers and businesses agree on, it’s that entrepreneurship will continue to play a large role in the state’s future.

As Arkansas’ flagship of higher education, one initiative the University of Arkansas administration has charged itself with is fostering a knowledge-based economy, which frequently translates into entrepreneurial endeavors.

According to a study by the UA’s own Center for Business and Economic Research, 14 of the 29 tenants at the UA-related Arkansas Research and Technology Park in Fayetteville generated $13.4 million in collective revenue during fiscal 2009. About 180 people are employed by all the companies, most of which are full-time workers.

One of those tenants is the Technology Licensing Office, which facilitates the granting of patents and licenses to scientists and others who wish to move proof-stage technology into commercialization.

“Our whole function is to take the intellectual property that is a residual, that comes out of the $100-plus million of research that gets done here at the university and figure out how to get it to market in a meaningful way,” said Jeff Amerine, a technology licensing officer within the office of the vice provost for research at the UA. (see sidebar on Amerine here.)

“We’re really a technology business development function,” he said. “You have to understand all the issues associated with taking fundamental applied research and trying to turn it into something that can be productized.”

The office actively markets technology it has to potential licensees, Amerine said, including using social media tools.

“Our preference is always Arkansas first. If we can find an Arkansas-based licensee that can build a kernel of a business that will then in turn hire alumni  … that’s what we’ll always try to do first.

“We’re starting to see some of the seeds that have been planted over the past eight to 10 years come to fruition.”

License to Thrive

In fiscal 2008, which ended June 30, 2008, researchers at the UA were responsible for eight patent applications, four new patents being issued, nine licensing agreements and one start-up business. The university spent about $100 million on research that year.

In 2009, eight patents were issued, there were eight new applications for patents and nine more license agreements.

All licenses earned a total of $302,536 in fiscal 2008 and $404,204 in fiscal 2009.

The UA recently said that 20 Arkansas-based businesses have started as a direct result of research performed at the university since 1990.

“This is clear evidence of the way the research conducted here at the University of Arkansas benefits the people of the state,” Chancellor G. David Gearhart said in a prepared statement about the news. “Our goal is to help our researchers move the technology and inventions they develop from the lab to Arkansas businesses and from there to the markets of the world. We are making obvious progress achieving that goal.”

A great example is Challenge Technology of Springdale. Mark Kuss (rhymes with loose), president of Challenge and a master research scientific technologist with UA, started his company 20 years ago.

He invented technology for a respirometer – a device that measures the breathing rate of bacteria – on the Fayetteville campus, then licensed it from the UA so he could commercialize a product.

The result has been a company that now has multiple product lines, regularly sells overseas and employs six people, most of whom are at a “technical level,” Kuss said. 

Challenge Technology has sold between 250 and 300 respirometers in those 20 years, all of which the company builds in Arkansas.

“It was a good deal for us and it was a good deal for the university,” Kuss said.

Douglas Hutchings is the CEO of Silicon Solar Solutions LLC, a company that incorporated in late 2008 and licensed five patents from the UA in November of last year.

“The technology licensing office was helpful and supportive every step of the way,” Hutchings said. “They’ve been instrumental in helping refine the business plan.”

Hutchings, who hopes to finish work on his Ph.D. in May, and two others found technology developed by university researchers called “metal induced crystallization of amorphous silicon.” That mouthful of garble will essentially lower costs and increase efficiency for manufacturers of solar panels, up to 26 percent and 16 percent, respectively, Hutchings said.

Silicon Solar landed an angel investment of $200,000 in November, then got a matching grant through the Seed Capital Investment Program offered by the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority. 

As for a knowledge-based economy, Douglas said there are now 10 higher-degreed employees of the start-up, but he’s hesitant to say SSS will ever be the ideal knowledge-based company Arkansans want. The exit plan includes an exclusive licensing agreement to an out-of-area manufacturer or an eventual sell, neither of which will mean jobs here.

Still, Hutchings said his angel investor is in-state and is interested in the Arkansas angle.