From 200 Disclosures to One Clear Winner

How a university TTO uses CompassIP to prioritize, score, and build commercialization plans.

A CompassIP Platform Walkthrough for University TTOs.

The following scenario illustrates how a university technology transfer office can use CompassIP to evaluate, prioritize, and act on invention disclosures. The technology, scores, and funding matches shown are representative examples based on platform capabilities.

The Problem: 200 Disclosures, 3 Licensing Associates Consider a mid-sized research university that generates roughly 200 invention disclosures per year. The technology transfer office has three licensing associates, each managing a portfolio of 60+ active technologies alongside new intake.

Every disclosure gets a preliminary review. Most get a patent search. But a full commercialization assessment, the kind that identifies funding pathways, sizes the market, maps defense applications, and surfaces potential licensees, takes weeks of manual research per technology. At that pace, fewer than 15% of incoming disclosures receive one.

The rest sit in a queue. Some have real commercial potential. Some do not. The problem is that without a structured evaluation, the TTO cannot tell the difference until months have passed and filing deadlines are approaching.

The result is a reactive workflow. Decisions get made under time pressure. Strong technologies get the same surface-level treatment as weak ones. And the TTO's limited budget for outside patent counsel gets spread thin across technologies that may never generate a return.

The Approach: Run Every Disclosure Through CompassIP With CompassIP, the TTO adopts a new intake workflow. Every incoming disclosure runs through the platform before any prosecution or licensing decisions are made.

The process takes minutes per technology. A licensing associate enters the invention title, a brief technical description, and the relevant patent class. CompassIP runs two assessments: an IP Review and a Commercialization Assessment.

No integrations. No IT involvement. No training beyond a 15-minute walkthrough. The platform is browser-based and runs on a simple subscription model.

What the IP Review Reveals One disclosure stands out immediately. A novel polymer membrane technology for industrial water filtration developed in the university's materials science department.

The IP Review scores the technology across five dimensions:

Claim Breadth: 7.2 / 10. The core claims cover both the membrane composition and the manufacturing process. CompassIP flags that the process claims are broader than the composition claims and recommends emphasizing the process in any continuation filing.

Citation Network Strength: 6.8 / 10. The prior art landscape shows moderate density. Three key patents from a competitor are identified, but none cover the specific polymer combination in the disclosure. The technology has a defensible position.

Competitive Landscape Density: 5.4 / 10. The space is active but not saturated. CompassIP identifies 14 active patent families in the adjacent space, with two companies holding dominant positions. Importantly, neither dominant player has filed on the specific application the university's technology addresses.

Patent Family Coverage: 4.1 / 10. This is a single provisional filing with no international coverage. CompassIP recommends PCT filing within the priority year to protect commercial value in key markets.

Estimated Remaining Patent Life: 9.2 / 10. As an early-stage filing, the technology has nearly the full 20-year term ahead of it.

Composite IP Score: 6.5 / 10. Strong enough to justify prosecution investment. The specific vulnerabilities, limited family coverage and moderate landscape density, are addressable with a targeted filing strategy.

What the Commercialization Assessment Finds The 13-section Commercialization Assessment paints a much larger picture than the TTO's initial review.

Market Sizing. CompassIP estimates a Total Addressable Market of $8.2 billion for industrial water filtration membranes globally, with a Serviceable Addressable Market of $1.4 billion in the North American industrial segment the technology is best positioned to enter. The Serviceable Obtainable Market, a realistic near-term licensing target, is estimated at $85 million.

Grant Funding Identification. This is where the assessment changes the TTO's calculus. CompassIP identifies seven active or upcoming funding opportunities across four agencies, each scored with a match strength percentage so the team knows exactly where to focus first:

NSF SBIR Phase I (pending reauthorization, estimated Q2 2026 reopening), 87% match strength based on alignment with the Advanced Manufacturing topic area DOE Technology Commercialization Fund, FY2026 CLIMR Technology Specific call (upcoming), 82% match strength with strong alignment to DOE's water-energy nexus priorities EPA SBIR, two relevant topic areas in industrial water treatment, 74% and 71% match strength respectively DoD SBIR via Navy SYSCOM, aligned with shipboard water purification requirements, 68% match strength The percentage scores make prioritization immediate. The licensing associate can see at a glance that NSF and DOE are the strongest fits, with EPA and Navy as solid secondary options. No more guessing which agency to pursue first.

The TTO was aware of NSF SBIR as a general possibility. It had not identified the DOE TCF pathway, the EPA topics, or the Navy application. Each of these represents a non-dilutive funding path that a licensee or startup can pursue immediately.

Dual-Use Application Mapping. CompassIP flags three defense use cases: shipboard water purification (Navy), forward operating base water treatment (Army), and chemical agent decontamination (CBRN). The dual-use signal strength scores 6.9 / 10, high enough to warrant outreach to defense innovation organizations.

Customer Discovery Contacts. The assessment surfaces 12 named organizations across three segments: industrial water treatment companies (potential licensees), defense contractors with water purification programs (potential partners), and municipal water authorities (potential end users). Each entry includes the organization name, relevant division, and the rationale for outreach.

Partnership Strategy. CompassIP recommends a licensing-first approach given the TTO's resource constraints, with a parallel track for SBIR-funded startup formation if no licensee emerges within 6 months. It identifies three specific companies with active R&D programs in adjacent membrane technologies as priority licensing targets.

Development Roadmap. The assessment lays out a phased roadmap from current TRL 4 to TRL 7, with budget estimates, go/no-go criteria at each gate, and the specific funding sources that can support each phase.

The Decision Before CompassIP, this disclosure is one of 200 in the annual queue. It has a promising initial review but no structured data to justify prioritizing it over dozens of other active technologies competing for the same prosecution budget.

After running both assessments, the TTO has a clear picture:

A composite IP score that justified prosecution investment A specific filing strategy (PCT within the priority year, emphasis on process claims) Seven identified funding pathways across four agencies, each scored by match strength percentage for instant prioritization Three defense use cases with strong signal strength Twelve named organizations for customer discovery and licensing outreach A phased development roadmap with budget estimates A recommended commercialization strategy (licensing-first with parallel SBIR track) The licensing associate prints the full report and hands it to the PI's research team along with a prioritized action list. The team begins outreach to the top three licensing targets that week. The PI starts preparing an NSF SBIR concept for the reopening window. And the TTO authorizes outside counsel to begin the PCT filing.

Total time from disclosure intake to actionable commercialization plan: one afternoon.

The Bigger Picture This is not a story about one technology. It is about what happens when a TTO can run every disclosure through a structured evaluation instead of triaging by gut.

When every technology gets scored, the strong ones surface faster. Prosecution budgets get allocated to the technologies with the best commercial signal. Licensing associates spend their time on outreach, not research. And the technologies that do not score well get a clear explanation of why, which makes the "no" decision easier and faster too.

The university does not need to hire more staff. It does not need to buy an enterprise platform with a six-month implementation timeline. It runs an assessment on a technology that is already sitting in its queue and gets a commercialization roadmap that would have taken weeks to assemble manually.

That is the value proposition. Not cheaper. Faster, broader, and structured enough to act on.