Technology Transfer Contact:
Mr. Martin Zeller
NASA Far West RTTC
USC ETTC
716 S. Hope Street, Suite 200
Los Angeles, CA 90007
213-743-2353
Email: nasa@usc.edu
Home Page: www.usc.edu/go/ttc

The mission of the NASA Far West RTTC (FWRTTC) is to promote innovative technology transfer partnerships between NASA and the private sector. These partnerships are intended to lead to the infusion of valuable technology into the Agency from corporate partners and also to the diffusion of NASA-developed technology into industry for commercial application.

FWRTTC works primarily to identify and promote technology transfer partnership opportunities with the three NASA research centers located in the far western region of the United States: Ames Research Center, Dryden Flight Research Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. FWRTTC reaches out to private sector companies throughout eight states in the Far West region with the message that technology transfer partnerships with NASA are available and constitute a significant opportunity for companies to tap into the technical expertise of NASA's research centers, stretch corporate R&D budgets and exploit NASA's technology inventory for commercial purposes. FWRTTC concentrates its outreach and promotional efforts for innovative technology transfer partnerships with NASA to companies in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

One of FWRTTC's jobs is to identify high priority technical needs at NASA and to bring prospective industry partners to the table who can address those needs through appropriate resource-sharing agreements. Such partnerships should allow NASA to realize cost savings or other value in the pursuit of Agency goals. Another of FWRTTC's tasks is to match appropriate technology from NASA research centers with commercial partners who have a need for the technology and who also have a plan to achieve commercial success using the technology. The ultimate goal of this effort is to improve economic development and prosperity across the region and to provide a global competitive advantage for U.S. companies. Innovative technology transfer partnerships with NASA are achieved through the use of various mechanisms:

Joint, collaborative research and development arrangements

Using a mechanism known as a Space Act Agreement, NASA seeks to join forces in partnership with American companies to leverage research resources and to bring value from industrial partners into the Agency. The Space Act Agreement is NASA’s version of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), used by other federal organizations such as DOE laboratories, NIST and others.

By combining monetary, personnel and facilities resources with private sector partners, NASA expects to leverage scarce R&D dollars, reduce life cycle costs of technology development programs and infuse valuable technology from the private sector, leading ultimately to achievement of Agency mission goals, while at the same time enabling the commercial partners to achieve their goals. Both partners thereby reduce R&D costs and at the same time advance their strategic objectives. FWRTTC assists NASA in finding suitable partners in selected areas where NASA has particular research interests and requirements that either cannot be met by the agency alone, or can be met more cost effectively through collaboration with a corporate entity.

Licensing of NASA-owned patents and other intellectual property

NASA’s portfolio includes hundreds of patented technologies that are available for license from NASA to companies with reasonable plans for commercialization on a non-exclusive, exclusive or partially exclusive basis. FWRTTC assists NASA in evaluating the commercial potential of selected patented technologies and in promoting those that are found to be commercially viable to prospective licensees.

Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer program awards

FWRTTC seeks to mentor small businesses in the art and technique of preparing winning NASA SBIR and STTR proposals. FWRTTC’s efforts result in an overall increase in the quality of SBIR and STTR funding proposals that NASA receives. FWRTTC conducts training seminars for small businesses on NASA SBIR and STTR throughout the eight states in our Far West region. FWRTTC also provides specific advice and input to small businesses in the area of commercialization planning. This is an important SBIR and STTR evaluation criterion, particularly for companies making phase II proposals.

FWRTTC is one of six NASA-sponsored regional technology transfer centers across the country. FWRTTC is an operating unit within the University of Southern California School of Engineering Technology Transfer Center (ETTC).