Transferring superconductivity technology at a national-laboratory user center

Abstract

Department of Energy national laboratories have long sought to expedite the transfer of commercially viable technologies to the private sector through publications and reports, workshops, the licensing of inventions, and personnel exchanges and other cooperative agreements between laboratories, industry, and universities. This article focuses on the transfer of patentable technologies through a case study of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory high temperature superconductivity Pilot Center (HTSC-PC). The Pilot Center was established in 1988 to encourage rapid incubation and commercialization of high temperature superconductivity technologies. The success of this venture will hinge upon assuring compatibility of objectives between the center and likely industrial participants and directing center efforts toward the aspirations of potential collaborators and the ultimate consumers of HTSC technologies. Lessons for general multi-program-laboratory technology transfer include the need for a model of collaboration that emphasizes openness and non-rigidity and facilitates the streamlining of information vital to the cross-fertilization of ideas, continuing reform of the licensing and royalty-sharing process, and simplifying the process of scientific exchange with external constituencies.