COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The Texas A&M University System’s Office of Technology Commercialization today presented Patent Awards to individuals and teams who are currently employed by the A&M System and whose inventions were granted patent protection from the United States Patent & Trademark Office in 2008.
In addition, three Innovation Awards were presented to scientists and inventors whose research exemplifies the spirit of innovation within the A&M System. This year’s Innovation Award winners were Kenneth R. Hall, deputy director of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station and associate dean of engineering at Texas A&M University; Dr. Darwin Prockop, director of the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Scott & White; and the Texas Transportation Institute’s Roadside Safety Division inventors C. Eugene Buth, Dean C. Alberson, Roger P. Bligh, D. Lance Bullard Jr., Akram Abu-Odeh and Hayes E. Ross Jr.
“As a system, we are committed to achieving excellence in research, fostering academic innovation and developing ideas to the benefit of public health,” Chancellor Michael D. McKinney said in his keynote address. “That is why this annual event is very important to me. When an individual, or a team of individuals, does innovative work that brings great credit to our universities and our university system it deserves recognition.”
Guy Diedrich, vice chancellor for federal relations and commercialization, said the Patent Awards provide “continuing strong testimony to the quality of research produced by the Texas A&M System. What’s especially striking is the range of scientific breakthroughs and new products and the impact these achievements bring to the state of Texas and its reputation as a leader in national and international research.
“Every working day there is a new disclosure of invention in the A&M System,” Diedrich said. “Every three days a new patent application is filled and every nine days a new license agreement is executed. “In the last two years the number of disclosures of invention has doubled.”
Texas A&M Patent Award recipients were Ronald Macfarlane, Renyi Zhang, John McLean, David Russell, Kevin Burgess and Ralph Zingaro. From Texas A&M University at Galveston were William Seitz and Alexandru Balaban.
Texas AgriLife Research Patent Award recipients were Suresh Pillai, Terry Thomas, Erik Mirkov, Keerti Rathore, Chandra Emani, Mona Damaj, Douglas Scheuring, Jeffery Koym, J. Creighton Miller, James Muir, Gerald Smith, Francis Rouguett Jr., James Read and Indre Pemberton.
TEES Patent Award recipients were Mark Holtzapple, Charles Culp, David Claridge, Jeff Haberl, William Turner, Edward Dougherty, Yoganand Balagurunathan, Randall Tucker, Jason Preuss, Andrew Kenny, Alan Palazzolo and John Criscione.
Texas Transportation Institute Patent Award recipients were C. Eugene Buth, Dean C. Alberson, Roger P. Bligh, D. Lance Bullard Jr., Akram Abu-Odeh and Hayes E. Ross Jr.
Texas A&M Health Science Center Patent Award recipients were Edward Dougherty, Magnus Höök and Sam Perkins.
About the A&M System
The A&M System is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation, with a budget of $3.04 billion. Through a statewide network of nine universities, seven state agencies and a comprehensive health science center, the A&M System educates more than 109,000 students and makes more than 15 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year. Externally funded research brings in almost $676 million every year and helps drive the state’s economy.
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