U.S. Joint Forces Command public affairs (May 10, 2005): new technology transfer authority helps put transformation on the fast track.

NORFOLK, Va. -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently delegated technology transfer authority to U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM), allowing it to share technology with academia and industry for the purpose of research and development.

USJFCOM can use this authority to speed the research and development process. The result is new ideas from academic, industrial, national, and international research laboratories can be developed into integrated capabilities for the joint warfighter quicker.

"We are not a national laboratory, but the Department of Defense recognizes that so much of what we do has national laboratory-like implications, processes, and the rest, which is why we were given this technology transfer authority," USJFCOM commander Navy Adm. Edmund Giambastiani said at a net-centric warfare conference in Norfolk, Va., March 22.

While USJFCOM is not a national laboratory, the new authority gives the command many of the same authorities national laboratories use to structure partnerships with industry to exchange personnel and technical data, make technology assessments, and collaborate on research and development efforts.

The command can now enter into core technology transfer agreements with private industrial and academic partners. For USJFCOM, technology transfer provides a new avenue for developing collaborative and cooperative relationships with both.

Technology transfer allows partners to share costs by entering into Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADA) with private companies and other entities. They provide the government use of the intellectual property while protecting the rights of the company to guard its patents.

According to command officials, the objective of a CRADA is cooperative research that will enhance the mission of the command and benefit the other party. CRADAs define the individual responsibilities of each party toward achieving that objective, as well as rights to intellectual property developed under the CRADA.

USJFCOM may provide personnel, facilities, and equipment to perform the cooperative research, but may not provide funds to support the CRADA. The other party may provide personnel, facilities, equipment, and funding.

Under federal law, CRADAs can be established with industrial organizations, industrial development organizations, non-profit organizations, universities, state and local governments, licensees of inventions owned by federal agencies, and other federal agencies.

As a result, USJFCOM may not always pay for the services or products it needs to develop technologies. In fact, some projects may produce income for USJFCOM. Newly developed technologies and concepts will immediately be applied to support the operational warfighter.

Command officials see the process as a win-win situation, for the both command and its partners. USJFCOM Director of Experimentation Army Maj. Gen Bob Wood spoke about the potential of technology transfer authority on April 5 during the command's 2005 Industry Symposium in Portsmouth, Va. "With the expanded authority," Wood said, "we can start to transfer better technologies out or in, depending upon the technologies, and break new ground with traditional defense contractors along that path. In the areas of research and development, it will give us new flexibility to structure partnerships with industry."

USJFCOM's focal point for technology transfer is the command's newly formed Office of Research and Technology Applications (ORTA). It will oversee partnership agreements between USJFCOM and industry. It will also identify new technologies that will help fulfill warfighter requirements

By law, any government organization using technology transfer authority must have an ORTA for offering advice and assisting the command with CRADAs, intellectual property agreements, patent licensing agreements, personnel exchange, and research grants.

Dr. Russell Richards of USJFCOM's Joint Experimentation directorate heads the new office. "Our job is to use these mechanisms in a way that makes it easier to work with industry," he said. "These agreements give us more timely access to new technologies while protecting the property rights of the inventors, whether they are government or industry." During the Industry symposium, he outlined three principal ways for technology transfer to take place at USJFCOM.

The first involves the classic model of spinning off technology developed in federal labs and transferred to industry partners for commercial development. "That's the way traditional technology transfer works for most federal laboratories," Richards said. The second consists of what Richards calls "spin-on."

"Our industry partners may have good capabilities and technologies that we need to embrace to enhance the warfighter's effectiveness," he said. "That will probably be prevalent here."

The third form of transfer would be what he termed "spin-over," where technology and capabilities are shared among USJFCOM's various subordinate organizations like the Joint Systems Integration Command, the Joint Futures Laboratory, and the Joint Advanced Training Technology Laboratory, all in Suffolk, Va.

While research and development has always been an important part of the command's mission, all those activities are there to support the joint warfighter. USJFCOM will remain first and foremost a combatant command focused on transforming the U.S. military.

"These new technology transfer authorities are but a means to an end--not the end itself," Giambastiani said. "The whole point of these authorities is to speed the process of turning the best ideas from industry and academia and other national and international research laboratories into integrated capabilities."

Journalist 1st Class (SW/AW) Chris Hoffpauir, USN