By Sage Arron

The U-M Technology Management office (TMO) has honored U-M researchers who received patents in the past year.

As a result of U-M efforts "to facilitate our faculty's interest in technology transfer [by] increasing services, streamlining policies and attempting to communicate the critical importance of this intellectual activity," said Research Vice President Homer A. Neal, 30 patents were issued to U-M researchers in 1994 compared with 20 in '93.

TMO Director Robert Robb said making the patent process easier "is essential to our end goal of getting technologies out the door and into the private sector."

The patents, which ranged across the fields of engineering, medicine, and the sciences, "may represent the virtual seeds of economic development and better health," Robb said, "as well as raise our standard of living and our global competitiveness."

The critical goal that research plays in the University's primary mission of education was humorously described by Farris W. Womack, executive vice president and chief financial officer, who commented, "Research is to teaching as sin is to confession, If you don't do the former, you don't have anything to talk about in the latter."

Readers may obtain a list of the patent recipients and the title of their research by requesting the information from Michigan Today.