Office of Innovation Advancement and Commercialization ready to assist AU innovators with IP, commercialization, startups

Dear Auburn Innovators,

During this unprecedented and transformational time, I am writing on behalf of Auburn’s Office of Innovation Advancement and Commercialization to let you know that we are here for you, ready and able to support your intellectual property, commercialization and startup needs with our full suite of services. Fortunately, we are able to operate remotely. We use market research, patent research, project and data management and communication tools that are online and cloud-based, allowing us to be as flexible as we need to be during this time. 

As an Auburn innovator, you may find that this period of alternate operations creates an opportunity to revisit any invention disclosure you may be considering or may have started previously using our innovator portal. If you are not familiar with it, the portal allows researchers to submit online intellectual property disclosure forms and make requests for material transfer agreements through a secure portal. Researchers can also use the portal to access current summaries and statuses of their intellectual property, agreements, patents and patent applications, and contact information.

We continue to conduct our full intellectual property (IP) evaluation and market assessment and are available to meet with you virtually to receive your feedback and move forward with protecting your discovery. In this week alone we have filed two provisional patents, both related to COVID-19. 

In keeping with our recent practice of having on-campus office hours in specific colleges and schools across the university, we plan to transition these to online office hours, available to all units but with a rotating focus on various colleges, schools and departments.

The Office of Innovation, Advancement and Commercialization is ready to support your commercialization needs and hope that we can take advantage of this time to move your ideas forward.

Thanks for working with us,

Jan D. Thornton, JD, MBA, CLP

Executive Director

Office of Innovation Advancement and Commercialization