[phasetransition]

Long ago I received my undergraduate degree from the University of Florida (UF). I remember when I started college, UF provided us a document that was entitled the IP passport, looked like a passport, and had all the IP related details you ever wanted to read about (which wasn't much for an 18 year old kid). But it was all there in plain language.

UF had (has?) 3 major IP breadwinners, Gatorade, Sentricon termite bait, and a glaucoma drug. Likely as a result, they had a sophisticated IP licensing and commercialization operation. Later, when I went to Georgia Tech, I discovered their technology licensing services were rather amateur in comparison.

There was a time when University of Florida and Florida State University, both state schools, were top 10 ranked for revenue from technology licensure. A professor at Florida State first developed the synthetic chemistry for the drug Taxol.

[fuzzfactor]

When I was a child the NFL was still drinking Kool-Aid, and only the Gators had Gatorade.

Other schools were envious and there was pressure to release it. It's hot down there in the SEC.

By the time I got to the University they were starting to rake in the bucks on the Gatorade and there was an emerging culture where there was widespread pressure to "invent new things or new ways of making the same old things".

It didn't usually work out and has long since faded, but it was an exciting time, not exactly shared by other universities, even some of the most prestigious.

This was quite strong in the Chemistry department where competition was very fierce in this respect, which could be seen as unsustainable at the time.

So when I was still a teenager I realized it was already too late and there would have to be a way to own my own inventions other than academic research, that had to be crossed off the list early.

It looked like a pretty smooth track but it was not headed where I wanted to go.

Therefore no PhD, no Bell Labs, no IBM, etc.

I forked early without resources which always seems premature, but in hindsight it was almost already too late for entrepreneurial effort alone to allow me to later launch without outside capital.

Interestingly, none of the other most lucrative university royalties today are nearly as many decades old as Gatorade.

[clairity]

i still drink gatorade all these years after being indoctrinated into it through basketball (via marketing agreements with schools), where we made it from powder in 10-gallon coolers. i still highly recommend making it from powder, so you don't pay the premium to transport water needlessly. it's also roughly 10× cheaper that way, and you can make it (much) less sweet, which is better for hydration/replenishment.

[fuzzfactor]

My employer has the packets in every port location so the field operators can always have some when they are out climbing the cargo tanks and boarding the ships.

If they haven't got bottled water then potable water is OK too, just need to carry an empty Gatorade bottle in the truck.

I guess Amazon workers would need two empty Gatorade bottles then, and really need to keep track of which is which.

[Arrath]

Yes, a co-worker learned on one particularly long drive never to buy a certain color after a mix-up of which bottle was which.

[sk5t]

All the more reason to prefer blue or red solution (just don't eat too many beets).

[runnerup]

Gatorade doesn't even have electrolytes in it anymore. The current formulation is purely sugar water. The true original formulation used for the football team tasted really quite bad - you can emulate it by mixing "Low-sodium salt" into some water and give it a try. It's....not good.

Really - there's almost zero potassium at all in the current formulation...pretty small amounts of sodium too. It just sugar water. Now you need to buy something like "Electrolit" to use for what Gatorade used to be. Or the "Gatorade Endurance Formula".

[clairity]

yah, i'd heard gatorade got 'watered-down' early on for taste, but i believe there are still a few other ingredients in there other than sugar and flavoring? not saying it's enough to live up to the marketing, but i think it's not exactly zero.

[Alex3917]

Interesting enough, you can order the large things of powdered Gatorade for in-store pickup from Target, but they don't have it on the shelves. They don't want anyone to buy it, but if you're going to buy it online then they'd rather sell it to you. On their website they list it as being on a "secret shelf" that doesn't actually exist in the store.

As long as it's 50% diluted, it's still as good as all of the more modern products for most use cases.

[ethbr0]

Ironically, wikipedia lists the history as UF originally turning down a patent offer.

Then, when Robert Cade commercialized it and demonstrated sales, they sued him for a cut. The two parties settled on 20% for UF, plus reinvestment of some of the proceeds in Cade's research at the school. [0]

So apparently all schools are amateur at commercialization. UF just has more experience than most.

And generally, it seems like most universities do better spinning applied research and licensure off into an associated organization, who can focus on that. E.g. Ames, Argonne, JPL, LLNL, Lincoln Lab, ORNL

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cade

[busyant]

> Then, when Robert Cade commercialized it and demonstrated sales, they sued him for a cut.

Someone once told me that no one gives a shit about your IP until you start making money.

If you start making money, then people will remember one of the following: a) your patent is invalid because they discovered it before you or b) they helped you with your discovery and they deserve a slice.

[kevin_thibedeau]

> they helped you with your discovery and they deserve a slice.

Using the "Gator" trademark entitles UF to a slice.

[chrisco255]

The word Gator is not a trademark, it's a common term for an alligator that dates back hundreds of years. "Florida Gators" is, within the context of football, athletics and academics.

[weird-eye-issue]

It's Gatorade, not Gator

[geoduck14]

>So apparently all schools are amateur at commercialization. UF just has more experience than most.

The professor that originally created the buckey ball (forerunner to carbon nano tubes) was at a community College, and he didn't realize what he had done. Then a nearby university (the one you are thinking of) saw his research and recognized what was happening - so they bought it and expanded it. The university professors eventually got a Nobel prize out of it.

[gyc]

> So apparently all schools are amateur at commercialization. UF just has more experience than most.

I knew an engineering professor at a large state school with a renowned engineering program and one of his biggest complaints was how incompetent the licensing/commercialization office was at the school compared with, say, Stanford.

[NetBeck]

A recent alumni gift from NVIDIA's cofounder will "Build Fastest AI Supercomputer in Academia" for UFL.[0] When I was researching colleges to attend, Florida seemed amazing for in-state tuition. Florida is still ranked one of the best states for higher education.[1]

[0] https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2020/07/21/university-of-flori...

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education/h...

[slap_shot]

> Likely as a result, they had a sophisticated IP licensing and commercialization operation

Because UF fucked up the Gatorade deal so badly.

I went to UF and worked for a seed investment fund that spun technology out of UF's research labs (and later one of their portfolio companies).

Their research to company pipeline is a beast because they're deathly afraid of making that mistake again.