Action Plan: A Survey of Patenting and Commercializing Building Science Research within Design Programs

This paper aggregates and analyzes data from interviews of architecture faculty across the United States who have filed patents for products, processes, and software. It discusses trends in how faculty collaborate, including to what extent students at both the undergraduate and graduate level are named as co-inventors. Analysis of the interviews reveals levels at which universities provide both financial support and training during patent filing, prototyping/testing, customer discovery, and commercialization. It also traces the types of funding and training that faculty seek, from internal university support to federal agency support, to the help that regional business incubators provide. The paper discusses the role interviewees feel that teaching can have in valuing Intellectual Property (IP), and how the structure of the tenure process can hinder the protection of IP. Finally, the paper discusses the interviewees’ thoughts on how to grow a disciplinary culture that fosters both faculty and student IP creation tied to commercialization in order to significantly enhance and impact the build environment.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.112.3

Volume Editors
Germane Barnes & Blair Satterfield

ISBN
978-1-944214-45-6