NASA program facilitates licensing of spinoffs

The job of NASA’s Technology Transfer Program is to support NASA spinoffs, i.e., technologies originally developed to meet NASA mission needs that have been transferred by license to the public and now provide benefits as a commercial product or service.

NASA says that its online licensing system, ATLAS, eases the application process by avoiding the use of jargon and confusing forms, and NASA’s tumblr page has a list of the current round of technologies available for licensing.

All of NASA licenses are individually negotiated with the prospective licensee, and each license contains terms concerning commercialization, license duration, royalties and periodic reporting. NASA patent licenses may be exclusive, partially exclusive or nonexclusive.

Via the Technology Transfer Program, business owners may access a list of ready-to-license technologies. If business owners don’t see something that inspires them this round, NASA encourages them to investigate the hundreds of other technologies listed on NASA’s website, www.technology.nasa.gov.