Eva Stal

MANAGEMENT OF THE INTELECTUAL PROPERTY BY THE BRAZILIAN PUBLIC UNIVERSITY: GUIDLINES FOR LICENSING AND COMMERCIALIZATION

This article discusses the management of intellectual property in Brazilian public universities, mainly in relation to strategies for commercialization or licensing the results of academic research. It identifies, in the international literature, the main strategies adopted and recommended by technology transfer offices in foreign universities, and compares them to the practices adopted in different Brazilian universities. Finally, it makes recommendations to enhance the procedures adopted by Brazilian institutions.

TOTVS Franchises in Latin America: Innovation and Internationalization

The TOTVS teaching case describes the internationalization process of a Brazilian company in the IT sector, which develops business management software. The case reports the company’s path since its inception, providing the opportunity for class discussion of themes and concepts related to technological innovation, innovation in knowledge-intensive services, international business theories and entry modes into new markets. The case is reported from the view of its president and founder Laercio Cosentino, who in the early 1980s realized the potential of microcomputers for business management systems. He managed the challenge of introducing such systems into companies that had manual control. Further, he provided outsourcing services and mainframe applications for those companies that were too small to attract the attention of industry giants like SAP and Oracle. In 1989 the company initiated a change to its corporate structure — former subsidiaries were transformed into franchises. The franchises added value to the operational process of TOTVS, which in turn generated new business opportunities, products and services.