Looking for an idea to start a business?

I recently returned from attending the 2008 Federal Labs Consortium National Meeting where I had the opportunity to network with representatives from many of the federal laboratories located across the United States.

There are federal laboratories at some universities, other facilities are stand-alone sites, and still other labs are located at military bases.

Scientists and researchers are often immersed in work to identify solutions to challenges the government is facing. This research often leads to the development of new intellectual property that is owned by the government.

While the technology was initially developed as a solution to a specific problem, that technology may also have applications for other markets and that is where your opportunity may lie.

Technology developed at government labs can be "licensed" by others to bring products to market. Commercializing (bringing the product to the marketplace) government patented products can be another source for growing your business.

Government agencies are eager to license intellectual property that has been developed at their facilities because this generates additional revenue and recovers some of their development costs.

Daunting challenge

Finding the right technology to commercialize can be a daunting challenge. The links to listings of patented devices are not always easily accessible.

This Web link, www.federallabs.org/labs, will get you to the Federal Labs search page where you can begin to look for available patents. You can search by region, state, agency, or technology.

My search on the key word "fuel" returned 23 hits from a variety of agencies including the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and Homeland Security.

Clicking on each of the individual listings will provide you with more information regarding the technology owned by the government and available for license. While you can reach an agreement with the agency to license their technology, they rarely offer "exclusive" license agreements. Their typical contract specifies nonexclusive use of their patent. That means others could also license that technology and bring similar products to the marketplace, but you may well have a significant head start on the competition.

Other resources

There are other resources available if you are looking to leverage technology developed by others. A company called Tech Transfer Online (www.TechTransferOnline.com) has recently launched a service where owners of intellectual property can post a description of their product and interested persons and/or business can contact them regarding the potential licensing of that patent.

This Web site also allows owners of patents to post them "for sale."

We have other resources close at hand. WARF (Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation) posts a listing of intellectual property developed at the Madison campus. Their Web site www.warf.org/technologies.jsp identifies products by technology cluster (agriculture, biomedical, chemical, etc.) and offers links to other resources with the WARF environment.

The compliment to WARF is WiSys which list technologies developed at UW campuses other than Madison. WiSys provides a link to assist interested businesses in finding available technologies. Their web site link is www.wisys.org/forindustry/ and like the WARF site, clusters technologies into similar groups.

Other research universities will have similar connections available for searching. Just go to their home page and look for technology licensing opportunities.

If you take some time you may find a "golden" opportunity that can assist in growing your business or launching a new venture.

Intellectual property can be leveraged, you need not develop you own, and it can prove to be a tool for sustaining your business well into the future.

Bud Gayhart is director of the Center for Innovation and Business Development at UW-Whitewater.