In 1992, Herb Richardson, as the Chancellor for The Texas A&M University System, spearheaded an effort to create an office of technology transfer, mirroring what he knew to be so successful at his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He pulled together several fledgling efforts in technology transfer and created the Technology Licensing Office, a centralized office to manage the intellectual property of eighteen universities and state agencies that made up the A&M System.
In the four years following the creation of the Technology Licensing Office, royalties exceeded three million dollars. Ten years later, this number would triple. In 2004 and 2005, the office was moved to Texas A&M University under the direction of the Vice President for Research, where it expanded its scope of services to include the formation of start-up companies around A&M technologies. Two such companies were formed in 2005. The A&M System renamed the group as the Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) and moved responsibility to the Chancellor in 2006.
The office now manages more than 900 patents and 1500 patent applications relating to a portfolio of some 2600 inventions. On average, the OTC files a patent every other day and closes a license agreement once a week. According to the Association of Technology Managers Annual Survey, the OTC is eighth in the nation in the number of license agreements generating revenue.
