Today Dow Chemicals, soon to be the second largest chemical manufacturer in the country, gave Resselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) four patents worth more than $4 million (Dow Chemical makes gift of 4 patents to RPI).
Quite a gift, until one considers certain facts:

1. The patents are worth nothing.  Until they are commercially developed, the patents have no real value.
2. This lack of real value does not stop Dow from getting a tax break for their donation, even though the “patents no longer fit Dow's strategic needs,” and thus were worthless to Dow.
3. RPI will have to invest time, energy and money, not to educate or discover new knowledge, but merely to turn a corporate spinoff  in to a marketable product.
4. Should RPI’s applied research be successful, RPI will then exclusively license the product to another (or the same) large corporation, who will make large profits and pay RPI royalties.
5.  If this technology is like almost every other university-developed technology, the royalties will not equal the research costs.

August 9, 1999
 

Dow Chemical makes gift of 4 patents to RPI
Alan Moorse,  Capital District Business Review

The Dow Chemical Co., one of the world's leading makers of chemicals, plastics and agricultural products, has given Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute four patents, plus their foreign equivalents.

Together, the intellectual properties are valued at more than $4 million, but as with any patent, RPI will have to invest time, money and effort in them to realize their full value.

Three of the patents concern U.S. rights to a group of films that could be used to protect plastic products exposed to the weather, such as siding, building panels and parts of recreational vehicles. The films, which can be used on light- or dark-colored plastics, will allow manufacturers to make superior products at lower cost, said Bruce Nauman, the professor of chemical engineering who will serve as "champion" of the technologies.

The fourth patent involves a barrier film technology that can be used to protect the walls of appliances from the blowing agents used to make the foam insulation that goes into them. The film will enable manufacturers to use new blowing agents required under ozone-protection agreements.

Dow, based in Midland, Mich., approached Nauman, who holds several patents related to plastics and polymer recycling, to see how well its patents might fit with the school's interests and expertise. He determined that the patents could be valuable to RPI and agreed to take the lead on them.

"When patents no longer fit Dow's strategic needs, we look for alternative ways to create value with those properties," said Robert Wintermyer, global manager of intellectual assets for Dow's Fabricated Products division, in a prepared statement. One approach is to give the patents to universities that already have interests in related fields, building relationships with the institutions and supporting their teaching, research and entrepreneurship programs.

The patents are the first Rensselaer has received from a corporate donor, said Charles Rancourt, director of the university's Office of Technology Commercialization. With Nauman's help, the school has begun looking for ways to take the technologies commercial. It is still too early to tell where they will be used.

Gifts of patents are relatively new in both industry and education, Rancourt said. In February, another chemical giant, DuPont, donated patents valued at $64 million to three universities: The University of Iowa, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and Pennsylvania State University.

One reason for the trend appears to be higher education's relatively new skill in technology transfer and commercialization, and growing faculty and student interest in patenting, prototyping and entrepreneurship, he said.

RPI's 3-year-old technology commercialization team is working on a number of other patents, Rancourt said.