TechComm

Introduction

The Center for Innovation established TechComm, a new federal Partnership Intermediary, in 2010.  TechComm is an inter-agency coalition of U.S. federal agencies and their federal labs, working with and through the Center to (1) facilitate the transfer of federal patented technology to industries for commercial use and manufacturing; and (2) facilitate cooperative research between federal labs with both universities and industries. 

The Center works primarily with and through its network of industry, university, corporate, and venture capital affiliate partners; connecting the affiliate partners to TechComm’s federal partner agencies and labs, thereby enabling technology transfer and commercialization.

From an historical perspective, research resulting in technology innovation has been the primary driver of economic growth and development. For the most part, it has “clustered” around and been driven by institutions who understood that commercializable research is the basic cornerstone in the creation of technology start ups.

TechComm’s network of federal agencies and affiliate partners is supported by the TechComm Innovation Management System (TIMS), a web based “portal”, linking the databases and search engines of our federal agencies and affiliate partners with strong protocols that allow effective search across the network, while safeguarding confidential data. This linkage provides a collaborative communication environment that enables the Center to assist its affiliate partners to (1) identify federal lab discovered technologies that can be commercialized through Patent License Agreements (PLAs); and (2) the opportunity to look at the federal lab research “road map”, enabling industry and academia to align their research with federal research priorities through Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs).

In “bottom line” terms, the TechComm network of affiliate partners and federal agencies facilitates licensing of federal patented technology by industries, and cooperative research agreements between federal labs, industries and universities.