Seven New Mexico research institutions have signed the Inter-Institutional Agreement, a contract that allows bundling of patents for economic development. The move is designed to provide rapid response and flexibility so that when commercialization opportunities arise, the institutions can capitalize on them quickly rather than having to negotiate individual contracts. To that end, each institution identifies specific patents available for licensing; selected patents can then be bundled and the licensing handled by a single institution.

The institutions involved are Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Science and Technology Corporation (STC) at the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, The MIND Institute, and the National Center for Genome Resources. The agreement was designed for other research organizations to become signatories.

The National Center for Defense Robotics (an initiative of The Technology Collaborative) in conjunction with Penn State's Electro-Optics Center, has selected re2, Inc. (Robotics Engineering Excellence, www.resquared.com) to determine the feasibility of establishing an experimentation center for electro-optic sensors in Western Pennsylvania. The center would help researchers assess the performance of various sensors on unmanned vehicles and other applications. re2, Inc. is a Carnegie Mellon spin-off specializing in mobile defense robotics.