Our Mission:
Manage USF's intellectual capital through the technology transfer process. DPL identifies, protects, markets and licenses, the embodiments of campus research and scholarly activity.
What is technology transfer?
Technology transfer is a term that describes a formal transfer of rights to use and commercialize new discoveries and innovations resulting from scientific research to another party.
Universities typically transfer technology through protecting (using patents, trademarks and copyrights), then licensing the innovations.
The major steps in this process include:
- Disclosure of Inventions
- Records Management
- Evaluation and marketing
- Patent Prosecution
- Draft and negotiation of license agreements
- Management of active licenses
Researchers in every college at USF formulate ideas that command research grants and other funding. The campus had over $290 million in research funding for the 2003-04 fiscal year. DPL monitors this research for potential patent and licensing opportunities, with the result that a discovery made with funding this year can result in a licensable technology within 2-3 years.
Who benefits?
University technology transfer efforts afford significant opportunities to several communities:
- To the university, technology transfer gives the academic community the opportunity to have a positive impact on the marketplace, products and economic impact
- To the industrial community, technology transfer gives the private, for-profit sector the means to tap the very significant world of new discovery found in the academic laboratory
- To the public at large, technology transfer provides the opportunity to benefit from extraordinary new advances being made by the brightest minds.
[--adapted from Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM)]
Main Contact Information
Please contact us with any questions you may have.
Phone : 813-974-0994
E-mail : patents@research.usf.edu
Mail :
Valerie Landrio McDevitt, Director
U.S. Registered Patent Attorney
Division of Patents & Licensing
University of South Florida
3802 Spectrum Blvd., Suite 100
Tampa, FL 33612-9220
Campus Mail Stop:
30338 Holly Drive
Licensing Managers
For Engineering Disclosures and Technologies contact
Jaideep Rajput, BSEE, MBE
Phone : 813-974-3732
E-mail : jrajput@research.usf.edu
For Life Sciences Disclosures and Technologies contact
Valerie Landrio McDevitt
Phone : 813-974-0994
E-mail : vmcdevitt@research.usf.edu
Organizational Chart
Useful Links
USF Research Foundation & Technology Incubator
USF Research Park and opportunities for research collaboration with USF
USF Connect
Entrepreneurship help for the Tampa Bay life sciences and biotech sector
ExpertNet
Florida universities' technologies available for licensing
About Technology Transfer
Introduction to university technology transfer
About Technology Licensing
Introduction to technology licensing and agreements
About Patenting
All about the patenting process -- designed for chemists but helpful in your field too!
Florida High Tech Corridor
Fosters applied research between the partner universities and their high tech industry partners.