Technology Transfer

Our goal for technology transfer is to make certain that our technology is broadly used for the benefit of our sponsors and the public.

At MITRE, our work includes developing leading-edge technologies, tools, and processes to address critical issues of national importance. We continually seek new ways to create value from these innovations. Transferring the results of MITRE's research and development into the commercial and public domains, whether by transition to sponsors, licensing agreements, open source release, or publication ultimately serves the public interest.

Our Technology Transfer Office (TTO) transitions MITRE-developed technologies to companies that make them available to sponsors, academia, and the public as supported products. This enables the government and the general public to benefit from our research advances in aviation, biotechnology, nanotechnology, collaboration and visualization tools, information security, wireless communications, and many other areas.

The TTO develops and administers MITRE's intellectual property management procedures so that emerging products the government needs can be produced as cost-effectively as possible. Since its inception, the TTO has transferred MITRE technologies to a wide range of companies, from startups to Fortune 500 corporations.

Supporting Sponsors' Missions Through Technology Transfer

Working with the chief engineers in MITRE's operating centers and with our legal office, the TTO secures protection for MITRE-developed inventions, ensuring that they can be freely used in support of sponsor missions. The TTO also manages the licensing process that makes our advanced technologies affordable and available. The goal of the TTO is to promote the further development and commercialization of MITRE technologies to benefit the public good. Revenues from licensing activities help support MITRE's overall public interest mission.

MITRE employs several modes of technology transfer:

• Open source licensing. We make software available for download on our website (www.mitre.org) and on community software development websites, including SourceForge and java.net. Thousands of users have downloaded MITRE-developed software programs such as Honeyclient, LAIKA, and the X3D Service Engine. MITRE's open source software is used in commercial products throughout the world.
• Direct licensing. Dozens of MITRE-developed technologies are being used to develop products for the aviation, computer security, language translation, and visualization markets by companies including Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems, Inc., and Harris Corp. MITRE also works with entrepreneurs and the venture capital community to license technologies to startup companies.
• Collaboration with standards organizations. Through our work with standards consortia, we place MITRE technologies in the hands of academic experts working with our government sponsors to promote ongoing research advances.

Extending Technology to the Wider World

Recent MITRE technology licenses will benefit the public in many ways:

• Researchers of traumatic brain injuries can better assess such injuries with a device based on a MITRE-developed prototype licensed by a medical device manufacturer.
• Two-related technologies, RiskNav and RiskMAP, support risk management in industries critical to our nation's infrastructure.
• The Universal Access Transceiver (UAT), in development at MITRE since 1995, improves situational awareness for small aircraft and aircraft operating in the lower altitudes of the national airspace. A related, smaller-sized technology—the UAT Beacon Radio—improves aviation safety by making unmanned aerial systems and other non-traditional airspace users visible to other aircraft.
• Our Behavior Worm Detection technology automatically detects computer worms using behavioral signatures. The technology quarantines worms, defending networks from attack.
• The MITRE Anonymization Tool can be used to strip personal data such as patient names, addresses, and Social Security numbers from electronic health records to protect patient privacy.

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