Article: 2. E. Rogers, S. Takegami, J. Yin, "Lessons Learned about Technology Transfer," Technovation, Vol. 21, 253-261, 2001.
The article being reviewed in this assignment,“ Lessons Learned about Technology Transfer ” provides different lesson learned about effective technology transfer by researching and analyzing the technology transfer process in New Mexico during the past several years. In this article, the author expressed that New Mexico is a good candidate to investigate their technology transfer process because of two reasons. Firstly, New Mexico is a technology-rich state because of universities researches and national R&D laboratories (which includes Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of New Mexico). Secondly, New Mexico is an entrepreneur-friendly state. In the article the author explained the different means of technology transfer. At the end, the author enlightened that the process of technology transfer is a difficult type of communication, requires certain level of train and skill, sufficient resources, and organizational and incentive structures.
At first the author gave a brief introduction about the importance of technology cities and how these cities contribute in create jobs and wealth and accordingly affect the economic growth which is driven by spin-off companies from research universities, federal R&D laboratories and corporate laboratories. The authors explained that New Mexico is a large state, small in population, and poor; however, state leader are strangely committed to creating a technology city in North New Mexico. Thus, technology transfer activity is increasingly underway in New Mexico. Then, the authors went on to give a brief introduction and defined Technology Transfer as the transfer of technologies from the originator to a secondary user. The technology transfer process extends all the way from R&D (which is often done by a university research center, a corporate unit, or by a government laboratory) to commercialization and beyond (which is often carried out by a private company). A brief explanation of the technology Transfer mechanism was given in the paper. A spin-off, licensing, publication, exchange technical information in a person-to-person meeting, cooperative R&D agreements are the channels of communications in Technology Transfer process highlighted in this paper. Spin-offs are the main mechanism for the rapid growth of technopolise, as more and more spin-offs occur a mass of high-tech companies is formed; however, The rate of such start-ups in a region is slow at first, but will increases exponentially when a critical mass is reached. This critical mass has not yet been reached in New Mexico, but may reach in the nearest future. A licensing fee is usually paid in exchange for acquiring a technology license also licensing royalties may generate a significant income for a research university or for a national R&D laboratory. Articles