OFFICE OF RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION NEWSLETTER | May 2007
(Volume VI, No. 11)
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OFFICE OF RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION NEWSLETTER | May 2007 |
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Roundtable to Follow Last Month's A-133 Audit Training Sessions During the April 10 workshops on grant audit findings, issues related to effort verification requirements were identified and a follow-up session has been planned to address them. A total of 115 faculty and staff attended the two workshops held last month, which were presented by Susan Eickhoff, partner, KPMG, and Jane Closterman, controller, UM System. (An additional 26 attended the same session held in Columbia in January.) The Office of Research Administration thanks everyone who took the time to attend the important sessions. A follow-up roundtable session of those who attended the workshops and members of the UM System Controller's office will be held to try to resolve the identified issues with the effort verification reporting form and gain a better understanding of effort verification requirements. For more information, contact Karen Boyd. .l
GRANT RESOURCES: HEC-TV, CableTEC Provide Public Awareness Tools By HELEN L. HEADRICK, Utilization Coordinator, HEC-TV/CableTEC If your project has a public awareness component, you could dramatically increase your chances of success for your grant application by partnering with local education channels. Partnering with the Higher Education Channel (HEC-TV) and the St. Louis County Cable Television Education Commission (CableTEC) will give your application a unique, innovative element that will make it stand above the competition. HEC-TV’s 522,00 viewers, DVD production, web streaming, and direct access to 62 K-12 school districts constitute a dynamic public awareness component for any grant. HEC-TV’s airtime is a quantifiable, readily accepted grant match that can total into the six or seven figures depending upon your need. The HEC-TV television programs detailing the work produced by your grant are fantastic “public recognition” for your grantor. DVDs of these same broadcasts produced through your grants are excellent “proof of performance” devices to give your grantors. They are also very advantageous for your next grant application. Unique in the nation, the HEC-TV/CableTEC partnership is changing the face of education in the St. Louis metropolitan area. CableTEC and HEC-TV form a dynamic combination empowering teachers and enabling students to achieve unparalleled success. Founded in 1981 as a 501(c) (3) non-profit corporation, The St. Louis County Cable Television Education Commission is the leading force in incorporating 21st century technology into education. CableTEC has spearheaded the wiring of every private, public, and parochial school in St. Louis County to be able to receive cable in the classroom and high-speed internet. CableTEC with HEC-TV is now focusing its efforts to enable teachers to create linkages with arts/cultural organizations, aligned with national and state standards, and incorporate educational technology into their lesson plans. HEC-TV, which receives major funding from CableTEC, reaches 522,000 subscribing households throughout St. Louis City and County and is St. Louis’ leading producer of education, arts, and cultural television programming. HEC-TV is the only television station in the metro area with the mission statement “to strengthen and promote the education, arts, and cultural communities in the St. Louis Metropolitan area.” The station is programmed by the Higher Education Consortium, which is composed of the eleven colleges and universities and sixty-two cooperating school districts in the metro area. Our Board of Directors is comprised of the Presidents and/or Chancellors of these member institutions. Member institutions award, on average, fifty thousand college credit hours annually through telecourses. Thirty-eight thousand students are registered to watch our foreign language programs to strengthen their language studies. HEC-TV broadcasts programs in 12 languages. l For more information, contact:
Patent Reform Act of 2007Apr 18, 2007 Excerpted from "Patently-O" By DENNIS CROUCH On April 18, 2007, bipartisan legislators in both the Senate and House of Representatives introduced sweeping patent reform measures in legislation termed the Patent Reform Act of 2007. The reform measures include the following provisions:
Although couched in terms of the importance of patents and patent quality, the thrust of many of the measures are clearly directed at "limiting litigation abuses." Although a detailed analysis has not been completed, the two versions appear virtually identical. Legislative Documents: Congressional Players:
Lobbying Players:
High Court Puts Limits on Patents By LINDA GREENHOUSE Excerpted from The New York Times April 30, 2007 The Supreme Court, in its most important patent ruling in years, on Monday raised the bar for obtaining patents on new products that combine elements of pre-existing inventions. If the combination results from nothing more than “ordinary innovation” and “does no more than yield predictable results,” the court said in a unanimous opinion, it is not entitled to the exclusive rights that patent protection conveys. “Were it otherwise,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the opinion, “patents might stifle, rather than promote, the progress of useful arts.” Because most inventions combine previously known elements, the court’s approach to deciding what sort of combination is so “obvious” as to be ineligible for patent protection will have widespread application. The result will be to make patents harder to obtain and defend. “Granting patent protection to advances that would occur in the ordinary course without real innovation retards progress,” Justice Kennedy said. He added that such patents were also undesirable because they might deprive earlier innovations of “their value or utility.” Patent law experts said the ruling created a common sense standard that could have a broad impact. “Nearly every patent that contains a combination of prior ideas is at risk because the court has dramatically broadened the standard of obviousness,” said Cynthia Kernick, an intellectual property lawyer at Reed Smith in Pittsburgh. Judges will have more leeway to dismiss patent infringement lawsuits without requiring a jury trial, and patent examiners, who generally grant patent applications unless they find prior references to the same invention, will now feel freer to deny claims, said Matthew Kreeger, an intellectual property lawyer at Morrison and Foerster in San Francisco. “And we could see thousands of cases asking the Patent Office to re-examine patents it has already granted,” said Mr. Kreeger, who was one of the lawyers who had prepared a brief filed by the Biotechnology Industry Organization in support of the patent. “It doesn’t take a lot of resources to ask for a re-examination.” To be eligible for a patent, an invention must be novel, useful and not “obvious” to a person of “ordinary skill” in the field. The Supreme Court case concerned a fairly typical dispute over whether a combination of old elements in a new way was new or simply “obvious” to any expert. At issue was an adjustable gas pedal for use on cars and trucks equipped with electronic engine controls. How could the vehicle’s computer tell the pedal’s position? A Canadian company, KSR International, under contract to General Motors, solved the problem by mounting an electronic sensor at the pedal’s fixed pivot point in order to communicate the necessary information. A rival, Teleflex Inc., demanded royalties, claiming the device infringed its patent on an adjustable gas pedal equipped with an electronic sensor. KSR refused to pay on the ground that Teleflex had combined existing elements in an obvious manner and that its patent was therefore invalid. KSR won in Federal District Court in Detroit, but that decision was overturned in 2005 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. l READ MORE
When Everything Connects: the Coming Wireless Revolution Excerpted from The Economist April 28 - May4, 2007 (The Economist featured a 14-page report on telecoms. The complete report is also available in the print edition and online at www.economist.com. The Economist online requires a subscription. "Spirit of Innovation" will feature excerpts from the report over the next few months.) A World of Connections: New wireless technologies will link not just people but lost of objects too. In the years to come, wireless communications will increasingly become part of the fabric of everyday life. David Clark, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who helped develop the internet, believes that in 15 or 20 years' time the network will need to accommodate a trillion devices, most of them wireless. To illustrate what that world might be like, Robert Poor, the co-founder of two wireless companies, Adozu and Ember, uses a modest example: light fixtures in buildings. If every one of them contained a small wireless node, people would not only be able to control the lighting more effectively but put them to many other uses too. If the nodes were programmed to serve as online smoke detectors, they could signal a fire as well as show its location. They could also act as a security system or provide internet connectivity to other things in the building. Such applications are already being developed. For instance, Philips, an electronics firm, plans to introduce wirelessly controlled lighting systems for commercial buildings in around five years' time. And its researchers are working on making networked light fittings capable of monitoring the objects throughout a building, tracking equipment in hospitals or preventing theft in offices. For all the excitement, it will be a while before machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and sensor networks become ubiquitous. Although the technology exists, different approaches do not as yet work well together. Still, the general direction is clear. In the years ahead new wireless technologies will appear in a plethora of devices, much as computer chips did in the second half of the 20th century. Marconi's Brainwave: Wireless technology is advancing by leaps and bounds--but there is much more to come. When Guglielmo Marconi was granted patents on his "wireless telegraph" in 1897, the future of his invention looked modest. At the time radio signals could travel only a few kilometres, and only one receiver and transmitter could operate in any one area. Since 1900 "spectrum efficiency"--the amount of information that can travel over the same portion of radio waves--has improved perhaps a trillion times, estimates Martin Cooper of ArrayComm, who is hailed as the father of the mobile phone. Just as a milestone was reached in 1998 when the volume of global internet traffic through America overtook voice traffic, so a turning point will come when devices connected to the network overtake people, whether in number, bandwidth or calls. This may happen sooner than expected. Oddly enough, it is the success of mobile phones that has fueled the rise of wireless communications among objects rather than people, promoting innovation and bringing down prices. Overcoming Hang-ups: Mobile operators have more high-speed networks than they know what to do with. From a glass office on the 32nd floor of Samsung's R&D centre, an hour's drive from Seoul, the site of a huge property development known as "Ubiquitous City" is visible in the distance. Soon its grey concrete foundations will sprout a set of ultra-modern blocks where everything is connected and controlled online. Samsung executives are proud of it because it ties together much of what their company is involved in, from home appliances and consumer electronics to mobile communications. Many other South Korean firms are also taking part, encouraged by the government. Joo Sik Lee, the head of new-business development at SK Telecom, the country's largest mobile operator, explains why such projects are so important. "Everyone already has a mobile phone," he says. "We have to find new business models and new uses." SK Telecom has introduced mobile-payment technology and is experimenting with health-monitoring devices. It is adding RFID readers to its phones so people can get information about products. It is even co-ordinating activities with its parent company's construction arm to add wireless automation to around 120,000 homes in South Korea this year. For a monthly subscription of about $5 this will enable residents to check their thermostat, security system and fire alarm and switch their lights on and off from afar. So far these sorts of wireless systems are relatively basic, admits Kazuo Murano, the president of Fujitsu Laboratories. But they mark the beginning of a new infrastructure that can be extended to many uses, just as new software on a PC enables it to do new things. For all the industry's lofty visions, it must confront uncomfortable realities. For instance, Samsung and LG, another big South Korean conglomerate, more often link their appliances with cables and power lines than with wireless technology. And for all the wizardry of SK Telecom's home-automation system, people in trials do not seem to use it much. The operator is considering bundling the service free with online entertainment packages. Even "Ubiquitous City," some executives admit, is more hype than reality. This is not the first time that the industry's plans have been delayed. In the lead-up to the 3G spectrum auctions in Europe in 2000, some carriers thought that linking machines and devices would account for around 12% of their revenue, notes David Benello of McKinsey, a consultancy. But in the event the industry decided to concentrate on people and phone, not factories and farm equipment. Now operators are having another go at machine-to-machine communications. Orange, a pan-European operator, has created a special business unit, M2M Connect. Other carriers have similar plans. Yet despite the talk, they are more interested in their mobile business than in pursuing M2M. That is a pity, because they have the customers, the expertise on network security and the experience managing millions of devices that would allow them to develop the new market successfully. Wireless innovation is more likely to come from smaller companies with a computing background. They are beginning to give machines eyes, ears and a voice. What the Mousetrap Said: Machines catch on to smart talk. Many companies claim to have built a better mousetrap. Rentokil has actually done so. The British building-services firm added a small sensor and a wireless module to its traps so that they notify the building staff when a rodent is caught. This is a big improvement on traps that need to be regularly inspected. A large building might contain hundreds of them, and a few are bound to be forgotten. Since June 2006 thousands of digital mousetraps have been put in big buildings and venues such as London's new Wembley Stadium. The traps communicate with central hubs that connect to the internet via the mobile network to alert staff if a creature is caught. The system provides a wealth of information. The data it collects and analyses on when and where rodents are caught enable building managers to place traps more effectively and alert them to a new outbreak. Such machine-to-machine communications can take many forms, from advanced utility meters that provide readings in real time to credit-card terminals at shops and restaurants. Most cash machines communicate wirelessly over a secure data network. Carmakers are exploring vehicle-to-vehicle communications to boost road safety. There are so many possibilities that the technology's champions sometimes get carried away. In 2003 the ARC Group, a British consultancy (since bought by Informa), forecast that by 2007 the market could be worth well in excess of $100 billion. In fact its value this year is likely to be around $25 billion, according to Juniper Research. Harbor Research reckons that the total may be as high as $48 billion if short-range wireless technologies, systems integrators and the like are included. What everyone agrees on is that the sector is now growing very rapidly. And as prices fall--as much as 20% a year for mobile systems, according to Gartner Research--growth is accelerating. Expectations were so high because much of the technology exists already. Yet it is being held back by non-technical factors: the lack of integration among different parts of the industry and the need for companies to change the way they operate. In the computing world the providers of networks, hardware and software work relatively smoothly together because of common standards, from the size of printer plugs to digital interfaces in the operating system. But wireless M2M systems have to start from scratch every time. l
Talking B-School: At MIT, a Time of Transition The Sloan's Dean, Stepping Down, Discusses Recent Changes May 1, 2007 [Editor's note: MIT's dean of the Sloan School of Management, Dr. Richard Schmalensee, 63, has decided to step down this summer after nine years. Ron Alsop interviewed him about his experience as dean and changes under way both at Sloan and in the M.B.A. market, from online degrees to focusing on entrepreneurship. This interview was published in The Wall Street Journal on May 1, 2007. Excerpts are included below.] WSJ: How have perceptions of the M.B.A. degree changed in recent years? Dr. Schmalensee: I think the M.B.A. has lost a bit of luster. When there are books with the title "The Five-Minute M.B.A.", you know you're in trouble. There's a feeling that an M.B.A. degree has become a bit of a commodity, and I find it troublesome that some students are not persuaded that the hard intellectual work in the classroom is worth it. They think it's just important to learn the business basics and buzzwords, network with other students, and get their M.B.A. from a brand-name school. WSJ: Is Sloan changing to provide more practical value to students and employers? Dr. Schmalensee: We don't want to go back to the 1940s and 1950s when schools had businesspeople come in and just talk about how they solved yesterday's problems. We still want to give students theory and conceptual frameworks to manage and lead people. But we are blending with practitioners more to bridge the gap between theory and practice. We had Jack Welch teaching a class last year, and he proved to be very engaging. A lot of what he talked about related to theory taught in other classes, but Jack doesn't make the connection and we're not sure students do either. He's teaching again this fall, and this time, we will have classes alternate between Jack and a professor, who will be sitting in on Jack's sessions and making the links with what students are learning in other classes. We have also developed the new course "Practicing Management" to better integrate academic theory with real-world applications. As they do projects and internships, the students should be learning and practicing management just as they would practice tennis or other sports. WSJ: What other significant academic changes have taken place during your tenure as dean? Dr. Schmalensee: We have concocted a new flavor of the M.B.A. called Entrepreneurship and Innovation. It's a program focused on launching and developing emerging-technology companies, and it has attracted about a third of the class, who will receive a certificate along with their degree. We also launched a management minor for MIT undergraduates. It's a natural fit for students in science and engineering planning to work in business and has already become the most popular minor on campus. WSJ: Given the growth of online education, is the Sloan School making any moves in that direction? Dr. Schmalensee: We looked at Web-based stuff several years ago and did some experiments but decided it wasn't a business we wanted to be in. We're trying to maximize the quality of what we deliver and don't feel going online will help us achieve that. We remain watchful, however, and it's more likely that we would use an online approach in executive education than in a degree program. l
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| The Office of Research Administration supports and advocates research and technology transfer by faculty, graduate students and staff. The ORA provides services in conjunction with external and internal sources of funding for research, along with services related to commercializing discoveries through technology transfer. The goal of this newsletter is to inform the campus community of grants received, to highlight the accomplishments of our faculty, graduate students and staff, and to share with you a calendar of important events and deadlines. Please direct any comments or questions regarding the newsletter to Tamara Wilgers (wilgerst@umsl.edu). | University of Missouri- Fax: 314-516-6759 |