Inventions increase revenue

For the past five years, ARTI, IU's Advanced Research Technology Institute, has been developing, licensing and patenting products developed by IU researchers. The University is finally enjoying the fruits of their labor.\nIU's licensing income for the past five years has grown steadily since the establishment of ARTI in 1997, reaching a peak in 2001 of over $4 million, while the licensing revenue increased by approximately $2 million between 1999 and 2001.\n"We've had a pretty good track record of increasing the revenue strength," said Judy Johncox, vice-president of ARTI. "We have some significantly important technologies that have been licensed that are now beginning to generate a revenue."\nBecause ARTI was established in 1997, the Institute is now witnessing those significant technologies generate a revenue for the University. \nOne of those technologies recently developed was invented by Jim Reilly, a professor in the department of chemistry. Reilly developed a new approach to improving the resolution of a mass spectrometer, an instrument used in measuring the mass of a molecule.\nReilly approached ARTI about receiving a patent in September 1994. \n"By the end of October we submitted a patent application," Reilly said.\nThe patent on Reilly's spectrometer took about three years to receive. He is now one of 135 patent-holders at IU. \nThat process is a complicated maze of further improvements on the product and convincing the patent examiner to license the product, which can take up to five years.\n"When it leaves the University lab, it's not a product," Johncox said. "It's the additional development needed to create a product from a university technology that takes three to five years."\nDifferent products may take a longer time to receive a patent than others.\n"If it's software, it may take six months to a year," Johncox said. Medicines typically take longer, but the revenue from medicine has also continued to grow.\n"There's a lot of people in the medical school that are making advances," Reilly said.\nAmong those advances made by IU researchers is a device called "The Closer," which helps improve the cardiac catheterization procedure -- a procedure that is used on hundreds of thousands of heart patients everyday. "The Closer" helps cardiac patients return home sooner and recuperate with less pain. \nIU researchers have even developed a new tartar control for pets and zoo animals. The new coating was developed by the IU School of Dentistry and has been licensed to Heinz Pet Products, Harper Leather, and Purina Mills.\nReilly said the growth and success of ARTI was a key to the revenue boom.\n"I think there's increasing recognition within the University and particularly within ARTI," Reilly said.\nARTI was developed to be separate from the University and is a non-profit organization. Possible budget cuts on IU's technology because of the state's recent economic problems will not affect ARTI because it is not covered under the University's budget, said Judy Palmer, vice-president and chief financial officer of the University's budget.\n"ARTI is a separate corporation and therefore not part of the regular University budget process," Palmer said. "Unlike campuses, ARTI is not directly supported by state appropriation and student fee income."\nARTI's increasing revenue goes back to IU students indirectly, Palmer said.\n"The revenues generated by the trademark licenses support student scholarships on the campuses," Palmer said. "The licensing and patent revenue is distributed to the University in accordance with the intellectual property policy."\nJohncox is not surprised by the recent revenue boom within ARTI.\n"ARTI has been licensing things all along," Johncox said. "Now you're seeing more products move into the market."\nProducts from all of IU's campuses are creating the revenue boom, but the technologies from the Bloomington and the IUPUI campuses are generating hundreds of thousands of dollars, Johncox said. \n"The revenue being generated off University technologies will continue," Johncox said.