Start-ups can get licensed to use new tech

Buy into a technology developed by Brookhaven National Lab for the low-low price of $1,000!

That's not a come-on. BNL, along with the 16 other major national energy labs in the country, is to begin a program May 2 that will allow start-up companies to license technologies for $1,000 -- a savings of between $10,000 and $50,000 on average upfront fees, the U.S. Energy Department said. The labs will work out details of how much of an equity stake, or how much in royalties, they will negotiate later. You didn't think it would be all that easy, did you?

"What this does is allow a start-up company to have some rights to a technology," said Walter Copan, manager of BNL's office of technology commercialization and partnerships, which is running the program at the Upton-based lab. Copan said that BNL has about 300 patents that it could sell to start-ups on Long Island. The Energy Department said there are some 15,000 patents and patent applications held by the 17 labs that could be sold. One includes a process that turns solar energy into heat and enables transportation of stored energy over long distances.

Copan said BNL hopes to attract about half a dozen Long Island companies to buy into the program that the Energy Department announced a few days ago, called the Startup America Initiative.

George Hochbrueckner, a former Democratic congressman from Suffolk County and now a consultant to Island-based technology companies, applauded the program. Hochbrueckner said he and some others in Congress tried to start such a program in the 1980s.

"The whole idea for the last 20 to 25 years has been to get some of the projects being developed at national labs out into the commercial world," Hochbrueckner said.

Copan said the patents to be offered to the startups would focus on energy projects, but could also involve biomedical imaging or homeland security.

The Energy Department program dovetails with an effort on Long Island to commercialize projects at Stony Brook University, Hofstra, Cold Spring Harbor Lab, North Shore-LIJ Health Systems and BNL. The U.S. DOE on May 2 will post information online about the program. Those interested must identify the technology they are interested in and submit a business plan.

The DOE advises those interested to visit its online Energy Innovation Portal.