If Carnegie Mellon University had not decided to out-license a computer-science technology developed by one of its faculty members, Lycos Inc. would not even exist. But today, Lycos is a 785-employee company with a $5.7 billion market cap. And some of this profitable cross-fertilization between industry and academe may be the result of one lawyer’s victorious battle on behalf of the University of California.
In a survey released on Dec. 2, the Association of University Technology Managers Inc. (AUTM) said that in 1998 alone, at least 364 new companies were started based on technology developed at U.S. universities and research institutions.
