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New
Technology Transfer Authority helps put transformation
on the fast track
Recently delegated technology transfer authority will
allow USJFCOM to partner with industry and academia to
deliver integrated capabilities to the joint warfighter
quicker.
By JO1(SW/AW) Chris Hoffpauir
USJFCOM Public Affairs
(NORFOLK,
Va. – May 10, 2005) –- Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently delegated technology
transfer authority to U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM),
allowing it to share technology with academia and industry
for the purpose of research and development.
USJFCOM can use this authority speed the research and
development process. The result is new ideas from academic,
industrial, national and international research laboratories
can be developed into integrated capabilities for the joint
warfighter quicker.
“We are not a national laboratory, but the Department
of Defense recognizes that so much of what we do has national
laboratory-like implications, processes, and the rest,
which is why we were given this technology transfer authority,” USJFCOM
commander Navy Adm. Edmund Giambastiani said at a net-centric
warfare conference in Norfolk, Va., March 22.
While USJFCOM is not a national laboratory, the new authority
gives the command many of the same authorities national
laboratories use to structure partnerships with industry
to exchange personnel and technical data, make technology
assessments and collaborate on research and development
efforts.
The command can now enter into core technology transfer
agreements with private industrial and academic partners.
For USJFCOM, technology transfer provides a new avenue
for developing collaborative and cooperative relationships
with both.
Technology transfer allows partners to share costs by
entering into Cooperative Research and Development Agreements
(CRADA) with private companies and other entities. They
provide the government use of the intellectual property
and while protecting the rights of the company to guard
its patents.
According to command officials, the objective of a CRADA
is cooperative research that will enhance the mission of
the command and benefit the other party. CRADAs define
the individual responsibilities of each party toward achieving
that objective, as well as rights to intellectual property
developed under the CRADA.
USJFCOM may provide personnel, facilities, and equipment
to perform the cooperative research, but may not provide
funds to support the CRADA. The other party may provide
personnel, facilities, equipment, and funding.
Under federal law, CRADAs can be established with industrial
organizations, industrial development organizations, non-profit
organizations, universities, state and local governments,
licensees of inventions owned by federal agencies, and
other federal agencies.
As a result, USJFCOM may not always pay for the services
or products it needs to develop technologies. In fact,
some projects may produce income for USJFCOM. Newly developed
technologies and concepts will immediately be applied to
support the operational warfighter
Command
officials see the process as a win-win situation, both
for the command and its partners. USJFCOM Director
of Experimentation Army Maj. Gen Bob Wood spoke about the
potential of technology transfer authority on April 5 during
the command’s 2005 Industry Symposium in Portsmouth,
Va.
“With the expanded authority,” Wood said, “we
can start to transfer better technologies out or in, depending
upon the technologies, and break new ground with traditional
defense contractors along that path. In the areas of research
and development, it will give us new flexibility to structure
partnerships with industry.”
USJFCOM’s focal point for technology transfer is
the command’s newly formed Office of Research and
Technology Applications (ORTA). It will oversee partnership
agreements between USJFCOM and industry. It will also identify
new technologies that will help fulfill warfighter requirements
By law, any government organization using technology transfer
authority must have an ORTA for offering advice and assisting
the command with CRADAs, intellectual property agreements,
patent licensing agreements, personnel exchange and research
grants.
Dr.
Russell Richards of USJFCOM’s Joint Experimentation
directorate heads the new office.
“Our job is to use these mechanisms in a way that
makes it easier to work with industry,” he said. “These
agreements give us more timely access to new technologies
while protecting the property rights of the inventors,
whether they are government or industry.”
During the Industry symposium, he outlined three principle
ways for technology transfer to take place at USJFCOM.
The
first involves the classic model of spinning off technology
developed in federal labs and transferred to industry partners
for commercial development. “That’s the way
traditional technology transfer works for most federal
laboratories,” Richards said.
The
second consists of what Richards calls “spin-on.”
“Our industry partners may have good capabilities
and technologies that we need to embrace to enhance the
warfighter’s effectiveness,” he said. “That
will probably be prevalent here.”
The
third form of transfer would be what he termed “spin-over,” where
technology and capabilities are shared among USJFCOM’s
various subordinate organizations like the Joint Systems
Integration Command, the Joint Futures Laboratory and the
Joint Advance Training Technology Laboratory, all in Suffolk,
Va.
While
research and development has always been an important
part of the command’s mission, all those activities
are there to support the joint warfighter. USJFCOM will
remain first and foremost a combatant command focused on
transforming the U.S. military.
“These new technology transfer authorities are but
a means to an end - not the end itself,” Giambastiani
said. “The whole point of these authorities is to
speed the process of turning the best ideas from industry
and academia and other national and international research
laboratories into integrated capabilities.”
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