HAMICo – a HAMMER Intellectual Property Innovation Entity (IPIE)
Hybrid Autonomous Manufacturing–Moving from Evolution to Revolution (HAMMER) is an NSF-funded Engineering Research Center (ERC) headquartered at The Ohio State University (OSU). The five HAMMER partner universities have agreed to form an independent 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation. This corporation will be known as HAMICo, an acronym for Hybrid Autonomous Manufacturing Innovation Corporation. HAMICo will be a repository for all the intellectual property related to the program from each university. Also, it can enter contracts to execute prototype and small-scale manufacturing. The data from these processes as well as component performance data will be available to the HAMMER research programs. This agile structure will allow the adoption of this technology at the speed of business. It will also be a platform for new businesses to be launched as divisions within existing companies, as independent startups, or nurtured using a studio model. Philanthropic donations will be used to initiate the entity. The model is unique and the result of many hours of discussions with stakeholders to develop an innovative intellectual property entity structure. If successful, this may be an essential model for future programs.
HAMICo will facilitate the translation of HAMMER research into real-world applications by allowing the manufacturing of actual components, which can be tested by real-world customers and further inform the research programs, helping to ensure the relevance of the research. Often, the core HAMMER universities will execute the projects; but the structure is more flexible. Over the long term, this will bring new manufacturing technology for use within the United States, along with the intellectual and physical infrastructure to cement manufacturing ecosystems in the U.S.
The base structure for the entity is shown below. HAMICo is structured as a public- private partnership that links the government-funded ERC program to entrepreneurial activities with a minimum of bureaucratic overhead. The board of directors is largely comprised of research administration leaders from the five HAMMER universities.
