February 5, 2009
UW TechTransfer secures two highly experienced IP professionals to join unit
UW TechTransfer, the unit that facilitates the commercialization of UW research, has hired Todd Alberstone as director of intellectual property management and Ed Cummings as a licensing officer focused on computing technologies. Both have experience in the local high-tech industry.
Alberstone will be responsible for planning, directing and overall management of the UW’s patenting activities. UW TechTransfer oversees an intellectual property portfolio that generated more than $47 million in the 2008 fiscal year. The UW’s portfolio includes discoveries ranging from life sciences and medicine to alternative energy, engineering and information technology. Alberstone was previously the associate general counsel and chief privacy officer at RealNetworks Inc. of Seattle, where he was responsible for planning and directing a wide variety of the company’s legal affairs, domestically and internationally; developing and implementing legal policies and programs to protect the company’s legal rights and strategic business interests; and negotiating with strategic business partners.
Cummings, the new intellectual property manager, has extensive experience in licensing information technology. He worked at Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash., for more than 10 years, most recently as a product management director. Responsibilities at Microsoft included working directly with senior technical leaders to commercialize new technologies; structuring collaborations between engineering teams and business partners; and managing teams of licensing professionals. At UW TechTransfer, Cummings will work closely with researchers in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering.
“We’re excited to have somebody with Ed’s skills and experience at UW TechTransfer,” said Hank Levy, professor and chair of CSE. “He will play a major role in helping us to move technologies quickly out of the university to where they can have impact in the community.”
A recent success of CSE’s technology was CNN’s use of Photosynth to document the presidential inauguration. Photosynth is a Microsoft Live Labs service that uses UW licensed technology to create 3-D images from thousands of photographs.
“We’re thrilled that Todd and Ed, who both have such impressive backgrounds in intellectual property and business development in industry, have agreed to join UW TechTransfer,” said Linden Rhoads, Vice Provost of UW TechTransfer. “Their recruitment represents a critical step toward an increasingly translational research culture, and UW’s ability to make a significant contribution to the local economy and job creation, especially at this critical time, through the formation of start-up companies.”
