Home > Topics > Putting Intellectual Property to Work: Experiences from Around the World > Fundación Chile: Technology Transfer for Somatic Embryogenesis of Grapes > Editor's Summary, Implications and Best Practices

Fundacion Chile is a private non-profit organization. Its mission is to add economic value to Chile’s products and services by promoting innovation and technology transfer focused on Chile’s natural resources and productive capacity. Fundacion Chile’s primary strategy is to develop new technology-base companies in Chile that can have a significant economic and social impact. These new companies are generally joint ventures with strategic partners, although other models, such as licensing, are used. The main activities are focused in the areas of Agribusiness, Marine Resources, Forestry and Forest Products, Environment, Information Technology, Education and Human Resources and Tourism.

This chapter describes efforts of Fundacion Chile to build local capacity for high technology innovation in order to benefit the Chilean economy. This was to be achieved via the founding of new companies in Chile based on technology transfer and also the forging of strategic partnerships with leading companies and universities throughout the world.

One program spearheaded by Fundacion Chile has sought to bring somatic embryogenesis—a biotechnological method—to the Chilean grape industry. The technology was identified as being strategic, both in the short term, as a non-controversial biotechnology that could offer immediate improvements in the health of grape germplasm, and also in the longer term as a key component of a grape genetic engineering platform. A global search was conducted to identify sources of technological expertise in somatic embryogenesis and then to determine how to acquire, license, or replicate the expertise in Chile. For those technological components that were subject to IP rights protection, freedom to operate analysis was conducted both within Chile and its major export markets to identify key technologies to which access would need to be negotiated.

In order to facilitate access to these technologies, a general approach was taken to negotiate rights for R&D purposes with an option for a commercial license. This gave freedom to pursue early stage experimentation without having necessarily to pay for commercial rights if nothing commercial ensued. Fundacion Chile negotiated an agreement with a university that had developed grape tissue culture technology. It negotiated material transfer agreements and imported samples of grape tissue culture to Chile. It also facilitated the exchange of researchers between a laboratory where grape tissue culture technology had been developed and a laboratory in Chile in order to provide experience, verify the set up of the new tissue culture system in Chile, and resolve any technical issues that arose. The lab in Chile has, as a result, been able to master somatic embryogenesis of grape and has begun to apply the methodology in a grape genetic engineering program.

Key Implications and Best Practices

Given that IP management is heavily context specific, these Key Implications and Best Practices are intended as starting points to be adapted to specific needs and circumstances.

For Government Policymakers

• Proactive measures to target strategically important technologies, acquire the necessary intellectual property, and develop new intellectual property will catalyze technological competitiveness in the local, regional and global marketplace.

For Senior Management (university president, R&D manager, etc)

• A rudimentary research program at your institution can be transformed into a world class center of innovation, given some resources, a basic familiarity with intellectual property, and a willingness to be creative in bringing in outside expertise and devising new programs, public-private partnerships, or private companies.

For Scientists

• Be creative in bringing in outside expertise and devising new programs. This might be done via participation in public-private partnerships (PDPs), or by collaborations with private companies. As you explore these options, you will likely be able to look beyond traditional sources of research funding and tap into an entirely new class of resources designated for “economic development”.

For Technology Transfer Officers

• Technology transfer programs in the North can offer much, in addition to access to technologies, to potential licensees in the South. Appropriately crafted and priced agreements can create opportunities for nascent R&D programs to leverage limited resources and, if successful, significantly impacting their local economies.
• Technology transfer involves much more than patent licensing. Partnerships in technology transfer might involve reciprocal exchanges of R&D personnel, teaching and demonstrations for transferring essential know-how and show-how, and collaborative projects. However, regardless of the scope of the technology transfer initiative, IP awareness and management remain key, from start to finish, and at all steps along the way.