In its two years on campus, UC Davis' burgeoning Technology Transfer Office has sent about 75 applications to the U.S. Patent Office to seal the rights to researchers' consumer-friendly inventions.
Because of the number of top agricultural researchers on campus, many of the patents and license agreements the Davis office has arranged are for plant breeds, such as walnuts and peaches, said Larry Fox, director of campus technology transfer.
But the university also expects to receive patents for inventions in a number of wide-ranging commercial niches from Internet fiber optics, to pharmaceutics, environmentally friendly pesticides and electronics.
Some of the more interesting inventions include those forthcoming from a trio working in the School of Veterinary Medicine, researchers from the Advanced Highway Maintenance and Construction Technology Research Center, and Gang Sun, associate professor of textiles and clothing.
Maintaining a cat's coat color
Vet school professor emeritus Jim Morris never imagined he would patent an invention for his field, feline nutrition.
"Our objectives are to find what's different about cats than other animals so that we can design more healthy diets for them," he said. "We know their metabolism is different."
For years, products in the pet nutrition area usually arrived on the market without a patent, Morris explained. But now high-end pet food makers are looking for patented "recipes or even formulations of recipes" to sell their products to eager pet owners, he said.
Morris, veterinary school professor Quinton Rogers and Shiguang Yu - a former postdoc who worked with Morris - are confident that they will find success with a new recipe they developed. The food is designed to prevent black cats' coats from turning a reddish-brown hue.
The trio studied purified cat food diets based on gelatin - a protein that is present in many commercial dry cat foods. That diet, researchers found, turned the black cats' coats. But when the researchers added the amino acid tyrosine - which is non-essential for nutrition, but essential for melanin synthesis in hair - the fur remained black.
"You might not think this is a big deal," Morris said, "but if you have a black cat or a dog with (brownish) black spots, and you show them, people aren't going to like it."
Keeping drivers on the road
Just in time for the blinding winter blizzards at Donner Pass, UC Davis' Advanced Highway Maintenance and Construction Center and research partner Caltrans are bringing out their prototype high-tech snowplow to clear Interstate 80.
For several years the RoadView snowplow has been helping Caltrans drivers navigate through near white out conditions with sensors mounted behind the plow's front tires that detect imbedded magnets along the road. A computer screen and radar system help the driver keep in a lane and warn of upcoming obstacles.
The highway center and Caltrans once used a magnet-sensing system from an existing patent. But UC Davis Research Engineer Ty Lasky and his colleagues developed a digital magnetometer that is easier to install and maintain and uses fewer connections. This will cut costs, allowing the UC Davis magnetometer to be used more widely.
"Down I-5 between L.A. and Fresno, you get that really thick fog," Lasky said. "It might be possible to put the technology on a California Highway Patrol car."
The vehicle could then lead a group of cars down the freeway.
Credit for the advanced magnetometer goes to Lasky, along with mechanical and aeronautic engineering professor Bahram Ravani and graduate students Stephen Donecker and Kin Yen.
Center engineers are also giving a boost to rotary plow operators who clear roadsides of mountains of snow pushed off the highway. The engineers have developed a radar system that allows drivers to "see" underneath the snow and any obstacles they might encounter. The plow, operated by a driver, will steer itself. The system is being tested for the first time this winter. He, Ravani and graduate student Shahrdad Tabib will get the credit for the radar system invention.
Inventions are nothing new at the highway center, said director Steve Velinsky. The center has patented or applied for patents on six products and has disclosed about a dozen more invention ideas to the Office of Technology Transfer.
Sun's clothing revolutions
A few years ago, Gang Sun, associate professor of textiles and clothing, blew the socks off people with his research on odor-free clothing. Sun, a chemist, learned that he could safely attach chlorine-containing and bacteria-fighting molecules called halamines, to textile fibers. Sun decided to apply his research to products like sports socks, hospital scrubs and incontinence pads.
The UC Office of the President's technology transfer program arranged a licensing agreement with Seattle research and development company HaloSource. Buoyed by that success, Sun and the UC Davis technology office have applied for a patent for a cloth dyeing technique that uses nanotechnology, or particles of the smallest size.
In a typical dyeing process, dyes must be dissolved in water twice in order to color a fabric blend. For instance, cotton must be dyed in one cycle and polyester in another - a process that produces a significant amount of wastewater for the manufacturer.
Sun found that by using a carbon black pigment made of nanoparticles the color would transfer into the fabric in one step.
"If it can become completely successful, it could lead to a revolution in textile dyeing," he said. "Many traditional water soluble dyes can be replaced by water insoluble solid pigments."
Eventually the same nanotechnology process could be used to infuse a substance that would make fabric static-free, Sun said.
Meanwhile, "Fresh Gear" socks from Sun's halamine technology are being retailed by Seattle company SciTech Solutions. Duane Dunk, a HaloSource vice president, said his company is also closing in on a deal for incontinence pads with halamines. The pads could hit the marketplace during the first quarter of 2002.
But Sun says he won't be satisfied until one of his advances - such as hospital uniforms that kill bacteria - are thought to save lives. "That will be the most important achievement," he said.