NAVSEA Receives Record Patent Licensing Fee
Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren has been awarded $500,000 for the licensing of five patents, the largest in Navy history, NAVSEA announced March 7.
The Navy received $100,000 for the licensing of each patent from Kismet Mgmt Fund LLC. The technology was developed and patented by four NSWC Dahlgren employees and a civilian university professor.
"This historic licensing agreement with private industry is a result of our employees developing technological solutions to the challenges facing our warfighters," said Capt. Michael Smith, NSWC Dahlgren commanding officer. "These five inventions will further our mission as we use the upfront fees for research and development of new technologies to increase the safety of our fleet and forward-deployed warfighters."
All five of the patents contributed to the development of the High Performance Distributed Computing (HiPer-D) system. HiPer-D resource management architecture provides capabilities for real-time monitoring of computers, networks and software applications within a distributed computing environment. The architecture's key feature is the ability to monitor system performance coupled with the ability to dynamically allocate and reallocate system resources as needed.
Although the license to Kismet Mgmt Fund is exclusive, it applies strictly to the commercial sector. The Navy owns the patents and can allow nonprofit institutions to use them for research. The patents' technical transfer may also result in royalty income for the Navy if commercial product sales are made that include these patents.
The process enables the Navy to reward their researchers through licensing agreements. The inventors will receive $130,400 - about 26 percent of the licensing fee. NSWC Dahlgren will apply the remaining $369,600 to fund various licensing activities and research to develop more licensable technologies.
The five NSWCDD inventions are not new patents. The technologies were developed during the last 13 years with the earliest patent issued in May 2006.
"By its very nature performing research and development leads to some technologies being left on the shelf," explained Lorraine Kaczor, NSWC Dahlgren Technical Partnering Office Domestic Outreach lead. "Licensing these technologies to business partners gives them new life to find their place in commercially available products."
Navy technologies can benefit from licensing since the commercial products they are incorporated into are typically less expensive.
"In the final analysis, this benefits the warfighter," said Kaczor. "Our command's investments in these patents are a testament to our commitment in research and development."
The five patents, registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Federal Register, are: U.S. Patent No. 7552438 - Resource management device; U.S. Patent No. 7051098 - System for monitoring and reporting performance of hosts and applications and selectively configuring applications in a resource managed system; U.S. Patent No. 7096248 - Program control for resource management architecture and corresponding programs; U.S. Patent No. 7171654 - System specification language for resource management architecture and corresponding programs therefore; U.S. Patent No. 7181743 - Resource allocation decision function for resource management architecture and corresponding programs.
