BY MARK SKERTIC
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A product developed to better heat homes will also be warming pizzas and the bottom line at the University of Dayton.
The use of "phase-change" material in pizza-warmer bags is joining pharmaceuticals, a jet-engine cleaning process and a way of stringing pianos as technologies that produce revenue for Southwest Ohio universities.
Nationally, royalties from inventions and patents are providing increased revenue to universities and accounting for larger shares of their research budgets. In fiscal year 1996, the last for which complete figures are available, universities received $336.6 million in royalty income. That figure does not include money the institutions received but gave to the inventors.
That amount is about 23 percent higher than 1995, a survey by the Connecticut-based Association of University Technology Managers shows.
In 1980, federal law changed to allow universities, non-profit researchers and small businesses to own and patent inventions developed with federal research money. Since then, the number of universities working to transfer technology to commercial ventures has grown from 25 to more than 200, according to the association. With that growth, more money has been plowed back into research, said Michael Odza, publisher of Technology Access Report, an industry publication that tracks the movement of technology from university labs to commercial enterprises. Royalty income now accounts for 2 percent to 5 percent of university research budgets, up from "near zero" a few years ago, he said.
The association's study ranked the University of Cincinnati 32nd nationally and first in Ohio in royalty and licensing income. The university has 11 royalty licenses generating $2.2 million in revenue, with most of the money coming from heart-imaging technology. "The pattern at most universities is you have one or two blockbusters that produce the revenue," said Norman Pollack, UC's director of intellectual property. Research income from grants, about $75 million annually, still dwarfs revenue from royalties. But Mr. Pollack said he's optimistic other technologies could become money makers.
A technology that changes the way piano strings are attached to the sound board has already been licensed to 20 piano rebuilders. He also has high hopes for a corrosion inhibitor developed at UC that has none of the environmental problems of chromium, a toxic metal.
University officials say it's not possible to embark on research projects with plans for making big money. And the step from patenting an invention and seeing it licensed and eventually producing revenue is a huge one.
Miami University has several patents, but none generates income, said William Rauckhorst, associate provost for research. "The odds of a patent yielding royalties is pretty small," he said. Some universities simply license a patent to an existing company, while others form a new business with other parties. Some companies have received millions of dollars when stock in these new companies was sold.
The average invention doesn't usually lead to a fiscal windfall. The average royalty is 2 percent of sales, said Mr. Odza. Exactly how the money is split varies, but some usually goes to the university and a portion is put back into research, he said.
The revenue stream is also unreliable. The University of Dayton received about $265,600 in 1996, but that jumped to about $800,000 in 1997 because of the sale of some stock in a licensee, said Lloyd Huff, UD's associate director for technology partnerships.
The amount should be close to that in the current fiscal year, helped partly by Domino's Pizza's recent announcement it will use "phase-change" technology developed at UD. The high-tech hot bags will keep pizzas 40 degrees hotter than the bags presently used.
Until recently, UD's royalties came from technologies that cleaned jet engines and monitored engine oil quality.
The bags are made by San Diego-based Phase Change Laboratories Inc. The material is a more energy-efficient way of storing and releasing heat.
Development of it began in the 1970s, "back when we had those long lines at the gas pump and people were worried about energy conservation," said inventor Ival Salyer, a former senior research scientist at UD and now a consultant.
The original research was backed by the Department of Energy and intended for use in wallboards.
While the technology has never been embraced for home construction in the United States, it is being used in Japan. It has also been used in food storage systems and clothing. Medical therapies are another area in which it has shown promise.
He said he wasn't surprised when his technology for better heating homes manifested itself as a better way to keep pizzas hot.
"In one of the very earliest publications, I listed the many, many things this material could be used for," Mr. Sayler said. "One was a way of warming food."
