From a catchy name (”Shoe Power”) to an in-depth evaluation and all-out awareness campaign, the Office of Intellectual Property and Commercialization (OIPC) at Louisiana Tech University is pulling out all the stops to find a path to market for a technology it believes has a bright future.

The technology involves an electrokinetic device that Louisiana Tech says can “parasitically” take 1% of the human-generated energy from activities such as walking and use it to run small electronic devices or to recharge batteries. Its name is derived from an initial application: a shoe with an integrated piezoelectric polymer in the heel or insole, which generates electrical power during walking or running.

“The inventor and I just bounced some ideas around,” says OIPC director Richard Kordal, PhD, recalling the brainstorming session that resulted in the catchy name for the invention. “We were trying to convey or describe the device in simple and easily understandable terms — especially for business development managers who generally are the ones that receive promotional materials and may not be that technically conversant. We also thought that, given the current emphasis on renewable energy, the term would fit in well with other ‘green’ products.”

Campaign a year old

Kordal and his team learned about the technology in a standard invention disclosure. “It was just one of those inventions that had some pretty obvious applications,” notes Kordal. “There were some ideas from the inventor on how it would work with all sorts of electronic devices.” For example, he notes, the inventor was funded by DARPA grants, and one potential application involved enabling soldiers to boost the electronic gear they carry without the need for replacement batteries.

“We also thought of some commercial applications like helping to re-charge any type of battery-run device, like a cell-phone, iPod, or PDA,” Kordal says. “Rather than go home to plug it in every night, you could recharge it as you walk around during the day.”

Part of the evaluation process included a class called Innovative Venture Research, or IVR, taught by business college professor Jon Pratt, PhD. “It gives students real-world experience in helping to assess potential commercial/business opportunities, and the Shoe Power technology was selected as one of the inventions the students evaluated,” says Kordal. “Over the years, we have gotten excellent licensing leads and application ideas from this class.”

The assessment began in typical fashion with a literature search. “We thought that our technology had distinct advantages over some similar technologies,” says Kordal. “There is one that uses a ceramic-based piezoelectric [platform] that was pretty hard and brittle. Then there was another that required you to apply a very high voltage bias. So, we determined this was patentable and went ahead and filed.”

In part due to the IVR class’s evaluation, Louisiana Tech was recently awarded a second National Science Foundation Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) grant — a “relatively rare event,” says Kordal — to further help in the commercialization of university technology, including Shoe Power. “This $600,000, three-year grant, entitled ‘Venture Enhancement Teams (VETs) for Commercialization of University Intellectual Property,’ will help to bridge the ‘valley of death’ by helping us to build prototypes on promising technology,” he adds. “The PFI grant provides some of the funding to build the prototype. Again, student teams (majoring in engineering, science, business) spend a year working together to design and build a prototype and business case for the technology.”

The team focused on Shoe Power “will be working closely with another VET team that is working on a novel capacitor technology to make an integrated system,” says Kordal. “By the end of the school year we hope to have a more mature technology available for licensing.”

Identifying potential targets

Kordal and his team have used a combination of broad-based marketing strategies and more targeted approaches to attract potential licensees or partners. For example, they applied to AUTM for the opportunity to give a Power Point presentation on the technology, and were accepted to make the presentation at AUTM’s February 2008 meeting.

“We also have it posted on our web site, with a one-page summary,” says Kordal. The summary gives a brief description of the technology, mentions that early prototypes have been built, sums up what has been demonstrated to date, and then offers this succinct list of its advantages:

   1. “Simple. The generator works on compression and no complex bimorphs are needed.
   2. Large power output. Power output of 20 mW is feasible (2 mW has been demonstrated).
   3. Piezoelectric. No voltage bias is needed and the generator works with no external power.
   4. Light weight. The generator weights only 6 grams — less than a lithium AAA battery.
   5. Low cost and ecological. The transducer material is inexpensive (~$0.02/shoe).
   6. Soft for shock adsorption. The stiffness is comparable to a regular shoe filling.”

Kordal says his office also takes advantage of web posting and networking sites, including Louisiana Tech’s own www.Techquisition.com, which Kordal helped to develop.

More specific targeting efforts were informed by the team’s awareness of current trends in this technology space, as well as some brainstorming about major companies that might see a high value equation for the innovation. “We were aware that Nike and Apple had collaborated to make a pedometer and attach it to an iPod,” Kordal notes. “I thought a good application might be to have that device made as part of the shoe, so we started looking at a lot of shoe manufacturers. We did fairly in-depth market research on running shoe manufacturers, developed a non-confidential summary, and sent it out.”

In addition, he says, the summary was sent to Apple and similar companies in the electronics space. “We used e-mail, and regular mail if we could not get an e-mail address,” Kordal says. “We included the one-page summary and a cover letter that basically said we knew they were in a particular industry and thought this might be of interest, and they could contact us for more details.”

Kordal’s team also looked at some small companies that were winning SBIR grants, including defense contractors. “We’ve had a couple of people inquire for more information and we have signed some secrecy agreements,” he says. “One measure [of success] is how many people asked for an NDA. If you’re getting them, you are targeting the right companies, and we have had several.”

Those companies are currently mulling possible next steps but none have sat down to negotiate yet. “Some companies would prefer to wait until we get the patent, but that can take more than three years,” he says. Kordal now plans to expand his target list to more electronics firms, and also will re-contact companies on his original lists for additional feedback.