By George Foulsham

	Sherylle Mills Englander

From the atomic force microscope to light-emitting diodes, UCSB has cemented its place as a world leader in scientific advancements and inventions. Now, thanks to its growing research enterprise, the campus has seen the number of inventions and patents –– and the income they generate –– rise dramatically over the past three years.

All told, UCSB had 611 active inventions in its 2008 portfolio, which also includes 316 active U.S. patents. That compares to 572 active inventions and 302 U.S. patents in 2007, and 480 inventions and 280 patents in 2006. In addition, UCSB had 103 new invention disclosures in 2008. Historically, the UC system has been a national leader in inventions and patents.

The UCSB portfolio also included 38 new licensing agreements in 2008, entered into with companies interested in developing products based on UCSB research. At the close of fiscal 2008, a full 46 percent of the campus’s active inventions were under some form of commercial licensing agreement.

“We try to get the technologies invented by UCSB researchers into the marketplace, so that they can help the economy and society,” said Michael Witherell, vice chancellor for research. “We have a small, efficient team of patent and licensing experts who are able to achieve that end.”

In fiscal 2008, UCSB produced total utility patent income of $3.88 million. That’s an increase of more than $1.5 million from 2006, when the university reported income of $2.316 million. The increase is due, in part, to the work of the Office of Technology & Industry Alliances.

“We have the pleasure of working with companies that are enthusiastic and talented,” said Sherylle Mills Englander, director of the Office of Technology & Industry Alliances. “The quality of the companies we work with makes a big difference in successfully translating UCSB research into products that benefit the public.”

The patent business is a complex, sometimes mind-boggling maze. “Each material, each design, each component, and each step of the manufacturing process can be covered by multiple patents,” Englander said. “Even a big, high-tech company might control only a fraction of the potential patents covering their process.”

The university had a patent cost reimbursement rate of 83 percent in 2008, an increase of 3 percent from 2007.

Englander is proud of the diversity of the UCSB portfolio of inventions and patents. While some University of California campuses have a very high proportion of their income from just one or two patents, UCSB has 33 percent of its income based on the atomic force microscope. The other 67 percent comes from hundreds of other inventions.

The atomic force microscope (AFM) was developed by Paul Hansma, professor of physics at UCSB, and his research group. The Hansma AFM served as a prototype for the commercially successful AFMs developed and marketed by Digital Instruments, a Santa Barbara company later acquired by Veeco Instruments. While the UCSB patent on the AFM expired this year, the university has seen a steady stream of income for almost 20 years as a result of Hansma’s invention.

The AFM is an example of research that generates patents, which often lead to spinoff companies, many located in the Santa Barbara area. More than 90 local companies have been established by UCSB alumni, with nine new companies formed in 2008 based on UCSB technology.

Among the more recent inventions and new start-up companies produced as a result of research at UCSB are the production and extraction of nanodiamonds from common carbon sources by a team of researchers led by James Kennett, professor emeritus of earth science; a novel chemical detection technology using microfluidics from the lab of Carl Meinhart, associate professor of mechanical engineering; and Hansma’s Translational Indentation System, used to quantify the integrity of diseased or deteriorated human tissue.