UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A partnership between Penn State and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) aimed at furthering innovation and inventions at the 14 PASSHE universities will continue through 2025.
Since 2008, Penn State, through its Office of Technology Management, has acted as the technology transfer manager for inventions created at the PASSHE universities. As part of this commonwealth-wide collaboration, Penn State provides invention evaluation, patent management, agreement negotiations, and general invention and commercialization guidance to each PASSHE university for a modest service fee.
These services are necessary to help any invention go from an idea to reality.
“Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education is pleased to continue our partnership with Penn State Research and by extension with industry partners to support our state’s economic competitiveness,” said PASSHE Chancellor Dan Greenstein. “We believe that putting the amazing research occurring on university campuses to public use or commercial application is an important aspect of our mission as public universities to serve the people of Pennsylvania.”
Penn State and PASSHE created the partnership 14 years ago to aid PASSHE schools that do not generate enough inventions to justify their own technology transfer staff.
“Over the past three decades, Penn State has developed a level of expertise in managing intellectual property that allows us to assist the PASSHE universities in their tech transfer efforts,” said Lora Weiss, senior vice president for research at Penn State. “As a state-related institution, we are happy to provide this service to PASSHE as a means of promoting economic development within the commonwealth — one of the core tenets of Penn State’s mission.”
In those 14 years, Penn State has assisted PASSHE universities on 30 inventions and continues to manage a small portfolio of licenses. The most notable licensing to date is a Lyme disease tick-testing kit out of East Stroudsburg University, which is now marketed under the Cutter brand.
Learn more about Penn State Research at psu.edu/research and the PASSHE universities at passhe.edu.