Nov. 7, 2008 -- Congratulations taxpayers! A group of patents, developed on your dime by a NASA researcher, sold at public auction last week in a new effort to parlay innovative technology into commercial goods and services.
"It's nice to get funds back that we can pump back into the program, but our primary task is to get these technologies out and create jobs and help the economy," said Darryl Mitchell, a manager in NASA's Innovative Partnerships Programs office at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
Mitchell was in Chicago last week to watch the bidding for a group of 10 NASA patents and a pending application that details methods and systems for analyzing non-stationary signals. The technology, known as the Hilbert-Huang Transform, was developed by NASA researcher Norden Huang, who devised the processes as a way to model ocean waves.
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"He originally wasn't going to submit his work (for a patent), Mitchell told Discovery News. "He didn't think he had anything special. He was actually encouraged by some colleagues who told him he had something really good there."
Huang, along with NASA, will share in royalties derived from products and services that make use of his patented applications for analyzing signals. Mitchell sees a wide range of potential uses for the technology, such as noise-reduction devices like headphones, voice recognition software, medical devices and systems to monitor the health of machines, like cars or airplanes, based on vibration analysis.
"You could see when a noise starts to change. Maybe a bearing is starting to fail," Mitchell said.
The lot brought in an initial $50,000 to NASA and $5,000 for a Chicago-based intellectual property services firm called Ocean Tomo, which arranged the live auction. Two other groups of NASA-owned patents did not sell, but the auction drew wide publicity for the government's offerings.
"Based in interest generated during Ocean Tomo marketing of the event and discussions following, we expect one or both of the other lots to go after the auction as well," Mitchell said.
Other technical agencies besides NASA have been monitoring the program with an eye toward auctioning off some of their own intellectual property rights.
"By being the first federal agency to participate in a live, public auction of exclusive patent licenses and demonstrating success, NASA has blazed a trail for others," Ocean Tomo director Connie Chang said in a statement. "We are thrilled with this outcome and look forward to helping others in the government accelerate innovation and contribute to our nation's economic prosperity."
The name of the winning bidder has not yet been released. Federal regulations stipulate that the winning firm have at least 51 percent of its business based in the United States.
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Innovative Partnerships Programs office at the Goddard Space Flight Center
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