“Technology transfer process” usually means one of two things: the six-to-eight-stage sequence a single invention moves through, from a researcher’s first disclosure to a signed license and a royalty check, or the office (the TTO) that runs that sequence across an entire institution’s portfolio. This page is a process overview — what happens at each stage, roughly in what order, and who is involved — with links out to CASRAI’s dedicated pages on each step for the legal and procedural detail. It intentionally does not re-explain patent law, license drafting, or Bayh-Dole compliance in depth here; see the linked guides for that.
The process, stage by stage
Real technology transfer offices rarely run these stages as a strict waterfall — patentability assessment and early licensee outreach often overlap, and a disclosure can stall for months awaiting a inventor’s publication plans or a sponsor’s rights determination. But the underlying sequence is consistent across AUTM’s own professional curriculum and most institutional policies:
| Stage | What happens | Who is primarily involved |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Invention disclosure | Researcher reports a discovery to the TTO before any public disclosure or publication | Inventor(s), TTO intake staff |
| 2. Evaluation and patentability assessment | TTO screens for inventorship, prior art, and commercial potential | Licensing officers, patent counsel |
| 3. Patent filing decision | Institution decides whether, and how, to file — provisional, non-provisional, or PCT | TTO, outside patent counsel, inventor |
| 4. Marketing to potential licensees | TTO identifies and approaches companies, or evaluates startup formation | Licensing/business-development staff |
| 5. License negotiation | Terms, royalty structure, and diligence obligations are negotiated and signed | TTO, licensee, legal counsel |
| 6. Revenue distribution | License fees and royalties are shared among inventors, department, and institution per policy | TTO finance, inventors |
1. Invention disclosure
The process begins when a researcher files an invention disclosure with the TTO — the internal report describing what was discovered, who contributed, and when. Timing matters more than it first appears: disclosing before any public talk, poster, or paper preserves the option to file a patent application, since public disclosure can start the clock on statutory bars to patentability. For inventions arising from federally funded research, the disclosure also starts the institution’s Bayh-Dole reporting obligations, typically tracked through iEdison. Who counts as an inventor is a legal determination, not a matter of seniority or lab hierarchy — see CASRAI’s guide to 35 U.S.C. § 102 and invention disclosure timing for how novelty and timing interact, and the prior art entry for what can defeat a later filing. Ownership itself is typically pre-assigned to the institution under its university IP policy, sometimes complicated by a sponsored research agreement‘s own IP terms or by work-made-for-hire questions for software and other copyrightable output.
2. TTO evaluation and patentability assessment
Once a disclosure is logged, the TTO screens it on two largely independent tracks: is it patentable, and is it commercially worth patenting. The legal screen tracks the same four questions a patent examiner will eventually ask — subject-matter eligibility, novelty, non-obviousness, and adequate written description — summarized in CASRAI’s patent law requirements guide and detailed individually for eligibility (§101), novelty (§102, linked above), and non-obviousness (§103). The commercial screen asks a different question: is there a plausible path to a product, and how far is the technology from one. Most offices anchor that assessment to the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale, since a technology’s TRL affects both patent strategy and, later, who is willing to license it. Many disclosures that are legally patentable are still declined at this stage on commercial grounds — patent prosecution is expensive, and a TTO’s budget for outside counsel is finite.
3. The patent filing decision
If the TTO decides to protect the invention, the next decision is how. A provisional patent application is the common first move — it establishes a priority date cheaply and buys twelve months to assess commercial interest before committing to the far more expensive non-provisional filing (see the worked example and CASRAI’s breakdown of the cost of filing a patent). If international protection is warranted, the institution may file a PCT application, which preserves the option to enter individual national or regional phases — including, for Europe, the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court system — later. Whatever route is chosen, the application must satisfy the §112 specification and enablement requirement, and once filed, it joins the institution’s docket, tracked for deadlines via IP docketing and, after grant, ongoing maintenance fees.
4. Marketing the technology to potential licensees
Filing a patent application does not create a licensee — it only protects the option to license later. In parallel with prosecution, the TTO markets the technology: identifying companies active in the relevant field, sending non-confidential summaries, and following up with interested parties under an NDA. Where no existing company is a good fit, or where the inventor wants to pursue it directly, the TTO may instead support formation of a startup, drawing on resources like entrepreneurial resources for university spinouts, university innovation accelerator programs, and spinout funding options such as SBIR/STTR, gap funds, or early-stage VC. Serious licensee candidates are typically vetted through a due diligence questionnaire before terms are discussed.
5. License negotiation
Once a licensee is identified, the parties negotiate the agreement itself: exclusive versus non-exclusive rights, field-of-use and territory restrictions, milestone and diligence obligations, and the royalty structure. CASRAI’s patent licensing guide covers the exclusive/non-exclusive and startup-versus-established-company tradeoffs in more depth, and licensing agreement examples and the software license agreement worked example show what real, filled-in terms look like. Royalty rates themselves are rarely set by formula alone — see royalty rate setting methodology for how the 25% rule and comparable-license benchmarking are actually used. This stage typically overlaps with continued NDA coverage protecting information exchanged during negotiation.
6. Revenue distribution to inventors
Once a license generates income — an upfront fee, milestone payments, or running royalties — the institution distributes it according to its own IP policy, not a universal formula; splits between inventor, department, and institution vary considerably by institution and are usually set out in that policy document itself. For inventions arising from federal funding, the Bayh-Dole Act requires that a share of royalty income go to the inventor, but leaves the exact mechanics of the split to the institution. This stage closes the loop that started at disclosure: the same policy that assigned ownership to the institution in stage one is what governs how the resulting income flows back out.
Where the process commonly stalls
A few points in the sequence account for most of the delay a research administrator will actually see. Disclosures arrive late, after a conference abstract or thesis defense has already created a public-disclosure problem. Patentability screening stalls waiting on a freedom-to-operate or prior-art question outside counsel needs to research. And marketing can take considerably longer than prosecution — a filed, even granted, patent with no interested licensee is a common and unremarkable outcome, not a failure of the process. None of this is unique to any one institution; it is a structural feature of moving early-stage research toward a commercial product, which is inherently uncertain regardless of how well the internal workflow runs.
Frequently asked questions
How long does the technology transfer process take, from disclosure to a signed license?
There is no fixed timeline — it depends heavily on the technology, the field, and whether a licensee is already interested before disclosure. Patent prosecution alone commonly runs several years from filing to grant, and licensing can happen before, during, or well after grant, or not at all. The provisional-to-non-provisional decision (see stage 3) is the one hard, calendar-driven deadline in the early process: twelve months from the provisional filing date.
Does an invention have to be patented before it can be licensed?
No. Some technologies, particularly software and materials, are licensed as trade secrets or under copyright without ever being patented, and a license can be signed while a patent application is still pending. Patent protection strengthens a license’s exclusivity and value but is not always a prerequisite to it.
Who decides whether to file a patent on a disclosed invention?
The TTO makes the filing recommendation, typically after both the legal patentability screen and a commercial-potential review described in stage 2, but the institution — not the individual inventor — holds the decision authority under most university IP policies, since it is the institution’s patent budget and Bayh-Dole election-of-title obligation that are at stake.
What happens if the TTO declines to pursue a disclosed invention?
Most university IP policies include a process for the inventor to request the institution release or license the rights back, sometimes called an “invention release” — terms vary by institution and are set out in the same IP policy governing ownership and revenue distribution.
See CASRAI’s Technology Transfer & Innovation pillar for the full set of dedicated guides referenced above, organized by sub-topic.
