For Anthony Robert Francis, who leads the Office of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at The University of Texas at San Antonio, commercialization begins with a different question: not whether an innovation or discovery has intellectual property protection, but whether there is a market for the idea.
“We have a fairly unusual process inasmuch as the market-first approach precedes whether there’s any intellectual property there or not,” Francis said. Most offices first check whether there is any intellectual property. We ask if there is a market first. So, the determination of whether there is a market or not then dictates what we do.
“Our process is to look at the market and give that feedback to the inventor,” Francis said. “That feedback shapes the project and determines what path to take. If you are opening the gate to things that have market value, then you are naturally opening the gate to all technologies and all things that might have consumer value. To my knowledge, there [are] very few universities that are doing that. So that has really been a point of competitive interest.”
And that process is paying off, with a fourfold increase in the university’s annual revenue from commercialization. Since 2023, revenue has climbed from $800K to $3.2 million a year, Francis stated.
While intellectual property is not the sole focus of bringing an innovation or discovery to market, it remains an important part of commercialization for the university and The University of Texas System. In 2025, the UT System ranked No. 4 worldwide and No. 3 among U.S. universities for the number of U.S. utility patents granted, according to the National Academy of Inventors.
Looking beyond patents
Having a market-first perspective means looking beyond patents alone and helping promising ideas take shape through the right strategy, partnerships and practical guidance.
Francis used the analogy of a movie producer guiding a project from idea to reality.
“There’s a role missing in commercialization and it’s the act of producing,” Francis said, adding that fostering a “producer mindset” is key. “This is an area in which we perhaps are leading, certainly in terms of how we get researchers activated in [the commercialization] space.”
“That producer mindset,” Francis continued, “is ultimately meant to support and elevate the researchers who are driving discovery across the university, because it’s the university’s multidisciplinary researchers who are the real stars.”
“They produce our stock, without which, we can’t trade,” Francis said. “We do not have the investment houses on the West Coast or the branding of Ivy Leagues, but we can mix [in] with any of them. This is what attracts potential partners and investors.”