BioFuels Journal

BFJ.com Podcast With Assistant Administrator ARS Office of Technology Transfer Dr. Richard Brenner on Licensing and Intellectual Property for Private Companies/ARS Cooperatively Researching Biofuels

Dr. Richard Brenner with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Office of Technology Transfer discusses how companies can partner with the government to develop new technologies.

Podcast Highlights

What the office of Technology Transfer Does

"My office of Technology Transfer is all about finding the right partners with complimentary assets to match up with our research capacities in Agricultural Research Service so that we can start addressing these very difficult issues on sustainable biofuels that can also contribute to the economic stability to our regions."

Capacity

"2,100 scientists across the United States at about 100 locations. Ten Registered patent agents."

Funding Resources? A new program called Partnership Intermediary Agreements

"My goal is to establish a handful of those across the U.S. with economic development entities that have access to the business communities, the venture funds, the seed funds, and they can begin to put to together complimentary benefits that a business needs to compliment the research in order to be successful."

Cooperative Research and Development Agreements

"It allows us to partner under a partnership agreement. That company has the right to negotiate the exclusive license to that technology without a federal register notice which means that competitors don't get tipped off."

Biography

Richard J. Brenner, Ph.D., was named in October 2004 the Assistant Administrator in Agricultural Research Service (ARS) for Technology Transfer. In this capacity, he represents the secretary of agriculture on issues pertaining to management of intellectual property arising from USDA research, and has the delegated authority for licensing inventions developed through research in any of the USDA agencies.

He is the agency representative to the Federal Laboratory Consortium for the USDA, and the Interagency Working Group for Technology Transfer convened monthly by the Department of Commerce Office of Technology Policy.

Prior, Dr. Brenner served as the Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Technology transfer (OTT), USDA-ARS from August 2001, where he managed much of the daily operations of Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs), patents, and licensing.

From 1984, Dr. Brenner served as a research entomologist and later as a research leader for the ARS in Gainesville, FL, following a two-year research assignment in Chiapas, Mexico.

Dr. Brenner has a Ph.D. in medical entomology from Cornell University, and two degrees from the University of Illinois.

For more information, call 301-504-6905.