After 11 years as the executive director and CEO of UVA’s Patent Foundation, Robert MacWright has resigned.
“I found an opportunity to build a practice in the area of technology licensing in the context of a law firm, and [it] presented me with new challenges that I look forward to,” he says.
At the end of January, MacWright, who taught patent and licensing clinic classes at the University’s School of Law, will begin working for Frommer Lawrence & Haug, LLP, an intellectual property firm with offices in Washington D.C., New York and Tokyo.
Since its creation in 1978, the Patent Foundation has generated more than $75 million in licensing revenue. More than 35 million has been distributed back to UVA to support further research, and $17 million was given to faculty inventors as personal income.
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UVA must start hunting for a new executive for the Patent Foundation, |
Most notably, in 2006, the Patent Foundation launched The Jefferson Corner Group, an angel fund that was designed to invest in emerging technologies and support in-house technological breakthroughs.
“The Patent Foundation Board of Directors is just a wonderful group of people,” says MacWright. “They are very supportive of some of the innovative programs that we were successful in developing. Overall, it has been a fantastic experience.”
In this past fiscal year, 178 invention disclosures by UVA faculty were registered; 179 provisional patent applications were filed and 65 total deals were made with companies and institutions. Thirteen copyrights were registered to University authors.
Around 54 percent of all 2008 invention disclosures came out of the School of Medicine, followed by the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, with approximately 28 percent and 17 percent from the School of Arts and Sciences.
“Bob has been a very effective leader of the Patent Foundation, and has established a first class national reputation for himself and the Foundation in the technology transfer community. We’re very sorry to see him go,” says Thomas MacAvoy, vice chairman of the Patent Foundation, by e-mail. “The Board of Directors will be meeting shortly to develop the process for finding his replacement.”
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