Field notes
Notes from the work.
Short notes from Dr. Nadir Yildirim on technology transfer, intellectual property, research commercialization and university–industry collaboration.
· Intellectual property
A note on the decision nobody had to defend
Britain discovered monoclonal antibodies and never patented the method. The usual telling blames the scientists. The record does not support that, and what it does support is less…
· Technology transfer
A note on the middle nobody counts
Every technology transfer office I have worked in reported two things well. What came in, and what went out. The US figures for fiscal 2025 give the shape of it. 28,278 invention…
· University–industry collaboration
A note on industry's share of research
Qatar has written sustained research funding into law and plans to double research spending by 2030. That is a serious commitment, and it is unusual. A RAND Europe review published on 16…
· Intellectual property
A note on what a patent cannot protect
A patent is the thing we teach researchers to want. It is also the part of a position that is easiest to count, which is why it tends to become the part we manage. The CT scanner is the…
· Research commercialization
A note on the statistic that built technology transfer
Technology transfer has a founding number. Fewer than 5% of 28,000 federal patents had been licensed. It was used to argue for the Bayh-Dole Act, and forty-five years later it still turns…