Industrial Research and Intellectual Property Offices Merge

The Office of the Vice President for Research announced changes to two offices in the Research and Technology Transfer Organization (RTTO).  The Industrial Research Office (IRO) and the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) will cease to be standalone offices within RTTO; instead they will be merged to form a new Office of Technology Management (OTM).

This is the first step in realizing an aggressive new vision at Penn State for technology development and translation to the market. The Office of Technology Management represents a new approach to intellectual property creation and management at Penn State. OTM will focus on fostering an ecosystem for technology innovation and translation; it will be responsible not just for the successful marketing of Penn State intellectual property and much more vigorous licensing to corporations and to start-up companies, but also for assisting faculty interested in doing more market relevant research.  In this endeavor OTM staff will work closely with faculty to understand their science and to help them develop new technology based on that science that has commercial promise. To do this the OTM staff will work closely with corporate partners and entrepreneurs as Penn State’s technology scouts to ascertain where innovation is needed most and to bring this critical information back to the faculty. The OTM staff will also establish partnerships between Penn State faculty and the corporate sector to support the development process while also continuously marketing Penn State technology to the world.