National Academy of Inventors

National Academy of Inventors

Abbreviation	NAI
Motto	"Honoring academic invention"
Formation	2010
Type	NPO
Legal status	Organization
Headquarters	3702 Spectrum Boulevard, Suite 165 Tampa, Florida 33612-9445
Location	Tampa, Florida
Region served	United States
Membership	3000 members and fellows
Official language	English
Website	http://www.academyofinventors.org/

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) is a national non-profit organization, which includes around 145 member institutions and approximately 3,000 individual members and Fellows. The academy holds an annual conference and an annual awards ceremony during which it inducts new Fellows.^[1][2][3]

Publications

In 2013 and 2014, the academy published a report with the Intellectual Property Owners Association naming the top invention-producing 100 universities globally, based on the number of U.S. utility patents issued.^[4] The National Academy of Inventors edits a multidisciplinary journal Technology and Innovation published by Cognizant Communication Corporation in New York.^[5]

Technology and Innovation has published information about pharmacology,^[6] the academic peer review process,^[7] and the application of nanotechnology to energy efficiency.^[8] The journal has also published new research on global patent harmonization and job creation through innovation.^[9] Technology and Innovation annually publishes the proceedings of the National Academy of Inventors meetings.^[10]

History

The academy was founded in 2010 by Paul Sanberg,^[11] a neuroscientist, entrepreneur, inventor, and the senior vice president for research and innovation at the University of South Florida. Inventors' Digest reported that the NAI acts on tenets of the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act which empowered universities in the United States to retain ownership of their patented inventions.^[12] Fellows inducted into the NAI in 2013 were named in the United States House of Representatives, and their contributions were declared "immeasurable."^[13]

The NAI weighs in on current issues of public policy by publishing articles on topics of importance to their members. In 2014, a group of university presidents and vice presidents from NAI member institutions wrote and published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) called “Changing the academic culture: Valuing patents and commercialization toward tenure and career advancement” that argued for recognizing the work of university faculty members who were inventing products and creating companies to count towards earning tenure.^[14] Another paper, also by writers from NAI member institutions, and published in Technology and Innovation, “More than money: The exponential impact of academic technology transfer,” discussed why it is valuable for universities to promote the moving of technology created by their faculty into the commercial arena by helping their professors obtain patents and start companies based on their inventions.^[15][16]

Congressional charter legislation

On September 18, 2014, U.S. Rep. Dennis A. Ross (R-FL-15), Senior Deputy Majority Whip, introduced H.R. 5650, to grant a Federal charter to the National Academy of Inventors.^[17][18][19] The legislation has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

Annual Meetings

The NAI holds an annual meeting each spring. At the 2012 annual meeting, held at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, the keynote speakers were Thomas Fogarty and then-Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO, David Kappos, who is credited by NAI founder Paul Sanberg with encouraging the creation of the Fellows program.^[20][21][22] The NAI and the USPTO collaborate on various initiatives, such as the 2013 Florida Regional Independent Inventors Conference, conducted by the USPTO and sponsored by the NAI^[23] and the USPTO’s Innovation Expo.^[24]

The 2013 annual meeting was also held in Tampa, Florida, where the keynote speakers were Robert Langer and Commissioner for Patents Margaret Focarino. The 2014 annual meeting was held at USPTO Headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia,^[25][26] and the keynote speakers were Stephen Quake and USPTO Deputy Commissioner for Patent Operations Andrew Faile. The 2015 annual meeting will be held at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.^[27]

Notable fellows

New fellows are inducted into the NAI annually. The stated criteria for induction is prolific innovations, one or more of which is trademarked, which make a significant and positive impact on quality of life, societal welfare, and economic growth.^[28][29][30] Fellows are named on the basis of achievements in applied science, specifically those who hold one or more patents issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Among the notable members and Fellows of the National Academy of Inventors are:

• Carolyn R. Bertozzi, professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley.^[31]
• Curtis Carlson, president and CEO of SRI International and a prominent technologist.^[32]
• Joseph DeSimone, Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.^[33]
• Thomas J. Fogarty, internationally recognized cardiovascular surgeon, inventor and entrepreneur.^[34]
• Greg Hampikian, American biologist and the founder and director of the Idaho Innocence Project.^[35]
• Patrick T. Harker, President of the University of Delaware.^[36]
• Nick Holonyak, John Bardeen Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics at the University of Illinois.^[37]
• Dennis Liotta, an Emory University professor and executive director of the Emory Institute for Drug Development.^[38]
• Santa J. Ono, University of Cincinnati president and professor of pediatrics and biology as well as Chief Scientific Officer of iCo Therapeutics Inc.^[39]
• Stephen Quake, Thomas and Doris Everhart Professor of Applied Physics at Stanford University.
• Esther Takeuchi, Distinguished Professor at Stony Brook University and a Chief Scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory.^[40]
• Jay S. Walker, curator and chairman of TedMed and a founder of Priceline.com.^[41]

References

External links

• National Academy of Inventors
• Technology and Innovation - Journal of the National Academy of Inventors
• National Academy of Inventors Annual Conference