Transforming Intellectual Property Management
FAMU needed a team that understood not only how to design and build their software, but most importantly, consults them on the delicate process of software commercialization.
They made one phone call. They called Cuttlesoft.
The software, called the Digital Technology Transfer Department (DTTD for short), was conceived after years of research by Ms. Tanaga Boozer. Its purpose? To move online the important but sometimes tedious work of IP licensing and patenting for technology transfer offices at HBCUs.
The DTTD creates an immersive way for patent attorneys and technology officers to connect with inventors and academic researchers and provides a platform for efficiently transforming ideas into patents. Cuttlesoft began by converting the patent, filed by Ms. Boozer in 2007, into a vision for how a modern web application would be conceived. To do this, the team took two approaches.
First, the analysis team thoroughly documented and illustrated every step of the journey an inventor’s application follows on its path from idea to patent.
Second, the design and software experts examined the personas of the system’s five unique actors: Inventors, Technology Transfer Officers, Technology Transfer Administrators, Patent Attorneys, and Service Vendors.
These perspectives would insure that Cuttlesoft could maintain a user-centric approach to designing and developing this very important application.
Development of the DTTD project focused on three fundamentals:
- user experience
- scalability
- growth support
