Acknowledgements
Executive Summary
Introduction

CHAPTER 1 - Overview of Completed Projects

Characteristics of the Projects
Timeline of Expected ATP Project
    Activities and Impacts
Gains in Technical Knowledge
Dissemination of New Knowledge
Commercialization of the New Technology
Broad-Based Economic Benefits

CHAPTER 2 - Biotechnology

Aastrom Biosciences, Inc.
Aphios Corporation
Molecular Simulations, Inc.
Thermo Trilogy Corporation
Tissue Engineering, Inc.

CHAPTER 3 - Chemicals and Chemical Processing

BioTraces, Inc.

Auto Body Consortium (Joint Venture)
HelpMate Robotics, Inc.
PreAmp Consortium (Joint Venture)
Saginaw Machine Systems, Inc.

CHAPTER 5 - Electronics

Accuwave Corporation
AstroPower, Inc.
Cree Research, Inc.
Cynosure, Inc.
Diamond Semiconductor Group, LLC
FSI International, Inc.
Galileo Corporation
Hampshire Instruments, Inc. (Joint Venture)
Illinois Superconductor Corporation
Light Age, Inc.
Lucent Technologies, Inc.
Multi-Film Venture (Joint Venture)
Nonvolatile Electronics, Inc.
Spire Corporation
Thomas Electronics, Inc.

CHAPTER 6 - Energy and Environment

American Superconductor Corporation
Armstrong World Industries, Inc.
E.I. duPont de Nemours & Company
Michigan Molecular Institute

CHAPTER 7 - Information, Computers, and Communications

Communication Intelligence Corporation #1
Communication Intelligence Corporation #2
Engineering Animation, Inc.
ETOM Technologies, Inc.
Mathematical Technologies, Inc.
Torrent Systems, Inc.

CHAPTER 8 - Materials

AlliedSignal, Inc.
Geltech Incorporated
IBM Corporation

APPENDICES

Appendix A: Development of New Knowledge and Early Commercial Products and Processes

Appendix B: Terminated Projects

END NOTES

End Notes

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Parties Other than the Innovator Can Benefit

If a project creates and disseminates new technical knowledge, parties other than the developers tend to benefit. That is true even if the new knowledge takes the form of "We tried to develop this technology using the following approaches, and we were unsuccessful." In that case, others may use this information to avoid pursuing comparable methods that would likely be wasteful. Or an underlying technology may be successfully developed even though a larger commercialization goal is not met.

New knowledge developed in a project can be diffused in a variety of ways. One way, discussed in the next section, is the marketing of new goods or services. Other ways relevant to the 38 completed ATP projects are publication by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) of patents granted; registration of copyrights; interactions among research partners, suppliers, customers and others; preparation of technical papers that are published or presented at conferences; distribution of nonproprietary project descriptions by government funding agencies; and project-related workshops and meetings.

Public Disclosure of Patent Filing Information

When applying for a patent, an inventor must explicitly describe the invention. Because patent law requires that the invention be both novel and useful, the inventor must demonstrate that the invention is essentially different from any other invention and must describe how it can be used. When an application is filed, the USPTO discloses neither the application nor the fact that it has been filed. But when the USPTO grants a patent, the full application text describing how the invention may be used and how it is related to other technologies is put into the public record.

The decision to seek patent protection for intellectual property is influenced by many factors, including the ease with which others can copy the property's intellectual content and the difficulty of defending a patent position from infringers. Some companies, therefore, may decide that patent protection is not worth its expense, or they may decide that a strategy of trade secrets and speed to market is a more effective strategy. Or patents may be filed at an earlier stage in the process and trade secrets used in later stages.

The importance of patents as a strategy to protect intellectual property varies among technology fields. In some, particularly computer software, patenting is rarely a viable option. Among the six projects that involve only software, no patents have been granted and only one patent was sought.

In other fields patents are important, and many were sought for technologies that emerged from ATP projects. American Superconductor, for example, has received six patents for its ATP-funded electric-motor technology and has eight applications still under consideration.

Even when patent protection is sought, there are substantial differences across industries in the lag time between patent application and grant. Consequently, the absence of patents at this time does not imply that patents will not be granted in the future. An application may have been filed but the patent not yet granted.

In yet other fields, patenting typically occurs at the very early stages of a project, when the basic ideas are forming. The consequences of this fact might show an ATP-funded project without patent activity, because the ATP funding comes after the very early stages of the R&D efforts.

Even with all these considerations, patent statistics contain useful information about technology development and dissemination of the new knowledge. Fifteen of the projects have thus far been granted patents, with a total of 50 patents granted to them.

Figure 4 displays the number of projects which had different numbers of patent grants. Three projects each produced five or more patents. Two projects each produced four patents. Fifteen projects each produced at least one patent. For 23 projects, more than half, no patents have yet been granted.

For some projects, applications for patents have been filed but the patents have not yet been granted. The delay can be caused by a number of factors, such as the technology area and extent of review by the Patent and Trademark Office, among others. Figure 5 presents data for patent applications filed but not yet granted for the 38 completed ATP projects. For 12 projects, patent applications have been filed but patents have not yet been granted. The total number of outstanding patent applications is 51 for the 12 projects. ⁽¹¹⁾ Three projects have five or more applications outstanding. For 26 projects, about two-thirds of the 38, there are no patent applications outstanding.

Eight of the 12 projects which have patent filings not yet granted are among the 15 projects which have already received patent grants; four of the 12 projects that have one or more outstanding patents applications have not already been granted patents. Thus, 19 of the 38 projects, or 50%, have engaged in patent activity for technologies developed with the ATP funding.

Copyrights and Registration for Software

The U.S. copyright system, also administered by the USPTO, works somewhat like the patent system but with important differences. A writer or other creator of a work or expression has an inherent copyright. The creator may register the copyright with the USPTO for added protection. For technology creations, protection via copyright is not as useful as patent protection. So when patenting is an option, it is usually chosen over copyright registration.

Registration of copyrights would seem to be important for ATP projects that generate computer software applications. Though six of the projects primarily entailed software technology, copyrights were not registered for any of them. In one case, however, the company is considering such a move to better protect its intellectual property.

Technology Transfer to Partners and Customers

If it conducts a project alone, a company can maintain a high level of secrecy about its technology. It may, however, develop technology in conjunction with three general classes of collaborators: joint venture members, subcontractors or informal partners. If it does so, it frequently shares technological information with these collaborators. In addition, the collaboration may be involve several types of partners: companies, universities, national laboratories, or non-profit organizations.

Providing a precise tabulation of collaborations across the classes and types of partners is difficult because of the many ways in which collaboration may be accomplished. Using a fairly broad definition of collaboration, it appears that for slightly more than half of the 38 projects, there was collaboration with one or more other companies. The next most prominent type of partner was the university, with about half of the projects involving one or more universities in the research and development effort. Government laboratories and non-profit organizations were each involved in less than a sixth of the projects.

For about two-thirds of the projects, there was an explicit arrangement for collaboration for at least one of the types of partners described above. In addition, some of the other projects had collaborative arrangements of a more informal nature that were not captured in the tabulation of research-related collaborations.

For the vast majority of new technologies, successful development and commercialization requires the inventor to also secure the participation of companies beyond those involved in the research. Some will be suppliers of inputs to the production process. Some will be partners in production. Others will be potential users and distributors of the new products or processes derived from the technology.

Disclosure in Technical Presentations and Publications

Much technology is disseminated via the publication of papers in technical and professional journals. Through publication, the knowledge gained by participants in an ATP project is passed on to others outside the project. These recipients of the knowledge may then use it commercially. Publication of research findings is therefore frequently delayed until patents or some other kind of protection for the intellectual property has been secured.

Table 4 summarizes information about technical papers generated by the 38 projects. At least sixteen of the projects yielded publications (where the existence of publications is unknown, the project is counted in the "0 or unknown" line in the table), and five projects produced more than ten publications each.

Table 4. Papers Published or Presented

Government Award Announcements, Workshops and Product Releases

When the government enters into an agreement with an organization, certain information about the agreement is generally made public. Such is the case with the ATP/company cost-sharing partnerships. Nonproprietary information has been disclosed to the public for each of the 431 projects funded by the ATP through 1998. The project information is available on the ATP web site on the Internet (http://jazz.nist.gov/atpcf/prjbriefs/listmaker.cfm), and new nonproprietary project descriptions are added to the site as new awards are made.

ATP Workshops

To help the public learn more about the projects it funds, the ATP organizes and sponsors numerous public workshops, where companies present nonconfidential aspects of their ATP-funded research and engage in open discussions. These workshops facilitate information flow in several directions - among awardee companies and from them to other companies, ATP project managers, other government program managers, the press, potential investors, and universities.

Knowledge Gained From Product Use or Examination

When a good or service that incorporates new technology is delivered, the buyer often will be able to learn a great deal about the technology. The mere functioning of a new product will reveal some information about the technology. Intentional investigation into how the product works will reveal more. Taking it apart, sometimes called reverse engineering, will reveal even more. For 24 of the 38 projects reviewed for this study, some commercial products or processes based on the ATP-funded technology are already on the market, where through use or examination they are providing others with information about the new technologies.

Go to other sections of Chapter 1: Overview of Completed Projects
  Characterstics of the Projects
  Timeline of Expected ATP Project Activities and Impacts
  Gains in Technical Knowledge
  Dissemination of New Knowledge
  Commercialization of the New Technology
  Broad-Based Economic Benefits

Date created: March 1999
Last updated: April 12, 2005