Guest article

Houston startups can grow quicker and smarter with NASA's technology licensing program

NASA's Johnson Space Center in the Houston area houses so much technology that startups can license for free for three years. Photo via nasa.gov

Everyone on the earth benefits from human space exploration. Your company can directly benefit from NASA's advances in technology. Space is the place to be and right here in Houston, the NASA Johnson Space Center Technology Transfer and Commercialization Office is ready to make connections and licensing agreements work.

New technologies have been researched, developed, and proven on the ground — as well as above the earth on the International Space Station — in fields including medical, communications, agriculture, manufacturing, materials, structures, and much more. At NASA's JSC, we are proud of the exceptional innovators who continue to develop technologies that advance the space program and technology for society on our home planet, and we love to share our knowledge.

Let's say you're a Houston startup looking for a new way to recover water from mining and refinery waste. Or maybe you're a prominent engineering design firm in New York City that was searching for technologies to stabilize a building and found a solution in one of NASA's rocket program. Maybe you are able to sleep better on a new mattress that was designed with zero-gravity comfort in mind. These are a few examples of companies that were able to find just what they needed from the NASA Technology Transfer Program.

The main job for the TTO is to help share/license inventions from NASA with scientific, academic, industrial, and commercial entities. However, since NASA does not develop or manufacture technologies for commercial sale, they pursue patents on their technologies for two main reasons. The first is to give companies the ability to commercially develop a technology while it is being protected by a patent, and the second is because patents are granted by the United States Patents and Trademarks Office in return for disclosure and publication of the invention for public knowledge.

Licensing a NASA technology is not as daunting as it may seem. Of course, JSC's TTO is around for guidance. NASA offers a standard and startup commercial license." Here we are talking the Startup Commercial License. It gives a startup company – formed with the express intent of commercializing a licensed NASA technology – the ability to license it with no up-front fees for up to three years.

A NASA license also allows a non-NASA entity access to a technology for testing, and to implement it into a system, service, or product that could result in sales. The TTO office cares about success of commercial businesses, and the negotiation of terms is done on a case-by-case basis. NASA has the authority to grant licenses on both its domestic and foreign patents and patent applications, but only US start-ups are eligible.

When people see the NASA logo, they tend to think cool, exciting, and space exploration. When companies license NASA technology the connection automatically ups their game. Think of it like having that cool friend, the one that makes you stand out and gets you noticed. In this case, a license through JSC TTO can get an organization connected to top notch technology and a whole network of friendly engineers, scientists, technologists, innovators, business specialists, and oh yeah – astronauts.

The JSC TTO welcomes new friends and works well with others. It really is about sharing information and technology while caring about the benefits for not only human space exploration, but for the commercial business industry and all of society.

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Steven A. González is the technology transfer strategist for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. If you want to learn more about technologies available for licensing, please visit: https://technology.nasa.gov/patents.

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Building Houston

 
 

Lane Martin will lead the Rice Advanced Materials Institute beginning this summer. Photo courtesy of Rice

A recently established institute at Rice University has revealed its new leader.

The Rice Advanced Materials Institute has named Lane Martin as director. Martin will also serve as Welch Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering in the George R. Brown School of Engineering. He begins both roles on July 1.

“Lane is everything we expect our faculty to be — hard-working, committed to excellence, dedicated to students and collaborative across disciplines,” says Howard R. Hughes Provost Amy Dittmar in a news release. “I look forward to seeing Rice faculty and students reap the benefits of his leadership.”

Prior to his appointment at Rice, Martin was the chancellor’s professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He also served as chair of the materials science and engineering department, faculty scientist in the material sciences division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and co-director of the Collaborative for Hierarchical Agile and Responsive Materials, according to the release.

“I had the privilege of mentoring Lane when he was a doctoral student at Berkeley,” says Ramamoorthy Ramesh, vice president for research, professor of materials science and nanoengineering and professor of physics and astronomy. “He is a gifted scientist with the boldness and vision to build this new institute into a research powerhouse.”

The new institute was created following a $100 million gift from Houston-based Welch Foundation. It will bring together chemistry, materials science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to revolutionize the future of industry.

“This institute will keep Rice at the forefront of high-impact research related to energy transition, advanced materials and future computing,” says Luay Nakhleh, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of the school, in the release. “It will empower our faculty and students to help solve some of the most pressing problems of our day.”

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