PASADENA—Richmond Wolf has been promoted to the position of director of the Office of Technology Transfer at the California Institute of Technology, according to Caltech vice provost David Goodstein.
Wolf replaces Larry Gilbert, who has become senior director. Wolf was previously associate director of the office. As director he is responsible for the management of the intellectual property portfolio developed at Caltech and JPL, which involves more than 1,500 issued and pending patents. He also directs outside counsel in issues involving patent prosecution, and negotiates agreements to license intellectual property to outside companies in fields ranging from information technology to the life sciences.
A registered patent agent, Wolf received a bachelor's degree cum laude from Princeton University and a doctorate from Caltech. He has cofounded two companies, WebEventBroadcasting and Xen Golf, and has also been an observer to the board of directors of Agorare Global, Oraxion, and VasGene. He has been or is a member of the advisory boards of ITU Ventures, Oak Grove Systems, the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance, and the Egg Factory.
Caltech was recently named second among all American universities in the number of annual patents awarded, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. For 2003, Caltech was awarded 139 patents, which was slightly ahead of MIT's 127 patents but behind the University of California system with its 439 patents.
Founded in 1891, Caltech is located on a 124-acre campus in Pasadena. The Institute also manages the nearby Jet Propulsion Laboratory and operates eight other off-campus astronomical, seismological, and marine biology facilities. Caltech has an enrollment of some 2,000 students, more than half of whom are in graduate studies, and a faculty of about 280 professorial members and 65 research members, and some 560 postdoctoral scholars. Caltech employs a staff of more than 2,600 on campus and 5,100 at JPL.
U.S. News &World Report consistently ranks Caltech's undergraduate and graduate programs as being among the nation's best.
