A Q&A with CeCe Ging, manager of DU’s Office of Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer
Cece Ging
CeCe Ging joined DU’s Office of Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer as manager in May 2018. She holds a JD from the University of Tennessee College of Law and her undergraduate degree in chemistry/biochemistry from Washington University in St. Louis. She is also a registered patent attorney with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. CeCe leads the Office of Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer in all stages of research commercialization, while promoting compliance with University intellectual property policies.
We sat down with CeCe to learn what entrepreneurs need to know about intellectual property, and how DU innovators can leverage the resources of the Office of Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer.
Q: How did you first get involved with DU’s Office of Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer?
A: After focusing on patent prosecution at a private practice and then on research contracts at Washington University in St. Louis, I was approached by the current senior vice provost for research and graduate education, Corinne Lengsfeld. I was excited to hear about her vision for DU’s research and the promising prospect of the University becoming an R1 research institution. R1 is standard for federal grants and research expenditure, so the bigger the school is in terms of research volume, the more opportunities there are for students and faculty. Growing research means a lot more opportunities in intellectual property. I saw a huge opportunity for DU and wanted to be part of the team that would build the infrastructure for DU to succeed in all aspects of the research enterprise.
Q: In its simplest form, what is intellectual property and why is it important for entrepreneurs to know about it?
A: Intellectual property is a legal framework regarding property ownership—quite literally, it is “property of the mind.” Anything that isn’t tangible could be characterized as intellectual property. But in terms of the law, it specifically relates to things like patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade dress and trade secrets. Things like data, or knowhow or other information might not necessarily be protected by law, but they can still be seen as intellectual property. So there are sort of two sides to it: things that are actually protected by law and things that are still intangible property but don’t fit into that legal application.
It is important for entrepreneurs to understand intellectual property because many startups are built on new ideas, whether it’s a new way of doing business or a brand new product or a way to improve an existing product. To be able to protect these ideas properly gives entrepreneurs a competitive advantage. And even for existing businesses, when you have innovation, you have a competitive advantage. Knowing how to secure a patent can give you a 20-year term where you have a crucial advantage over everybody else in the market. So even in the very beginning of your entrepreneurial career, it’s incredibly beneficial to look at the ideas you have, understand the advantage you have and to secure and protect those innovations.
Q: How can the DU community learn the essentials of Intellectual Property?
I am a mentor for Entrepreneurship@DU and anyone in the DU community is more than welcome to contact me through the mentorship program for general intellectual property information related to class projects, any personal off-site projects or extracurricular startups that they may be engaged with. This can be for things school related or for projects unaffiliated with DU.
The Office of Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer itself is set up to serve projects and the associated intellectual property that belongs to the University. When we receive a grant, whether it is from the federal government or an industry sponsorship, we conduct work that produces intellectual property—whether that’s data or patents or other outcomes down the road. In these instances, faculty and students are obligated by law or contracts to disclose their discoveries to the Office of Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer so that we can work on DU’s behalf to protect it and determine ownership—and potentially commercialize it. If DU licenses something, the royalties generated will go through our office and then will be distributed to the appropriate parties. That could be departments, that could be inventors and creators themselves, or the University as a whole. If a student is involved in a project—something that is federally funded, for example—we handle the intellectual property that comes out of that work.
Q: What should DU entrepreneurs do if they have something new they are looking to commercialize?
Many undergrads are involved with non-sponsored projects. They might be doing something for a class or a capstone project or a competition. If that is the case, it’s still useful for students to come to the office and determine whether they own those properties 100% or if the University, or professors and advisors, may have ownership as well. Sometimes students may work on a project without knowing it was sponsored by a foundation or by the federal government—sometimes, those things aren’t disclosed at the very beginning. The office can be of use if there are other issues as well. Maybe there is a question of who actually came up with an idea or who was the inventor. So anytime a student has something new that may have value in a commercial sense, they can come to us to determine these things. If you have an idea that is owned wholly by you, we can generate a letter to confirm that.
Without taking these steps, the worst that could happen is down the road, you don’t actually own something 100%, and that can jeopardize your ability to leverage your intellectual property to raise funds and other necessary business practices. So any time you’ve created something new at DU that you’d like to commercialize, we encourage you to come to the office and we can help navigate that process.