Raising awareness of the possibilities of patenting is the aim of the Technology Transfer Center at UC Davis. The center last week mailed packets to 1,500 campus faculty and 900 research adjunct faculty with information about intellectual property, the patenting process and how inventions can be licensed and marketed.

Fiscal year 2003 saw a 100 percent increase in the number of records of invention filed at UC Davis, said Technology Transfer Center director Larry Fox. A record of invention is the first step in applying for a patent.

"The quality of these inventions is just superb," Fox said.

UC Davis now ranks second in the UC system in fees and royalties from patents, collecting $16.5 million in fiscal year 2002 and $9.5 million the year before. One UC Davis invention, an optical network switch developed at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is now the highest earning invention in UC's portfolio, Fox said.

Other inventions from UC Davis earning money for the university include technology for liposome storage technology, used for drug delivery; diagnostic tests for cat diseases; novel composite materials with unusual properties; and several varieties of strawberry.

The income from successful patents is distributed between the inventor, supporting research and education at UC campuses and the UC General Fund. For more information, visit the center's Web pages at http:// ovcr.ucdavis.edu/ttc/.