The university tapped Mike Poterala on Wednesday as director of the Office of Inventions and Copyrights and MSU Technologies, a program that identifies university research with commercial potential and markets the technologies to commercial partners.

“World-class research deserves world-class technology transfer support,” Poterala said.

MSU Technologies and the Office of Inventions and Copyrights will replace MSU’s Office of Intellectual Property, an organization Poterala was named director of in January.

Poterala said much of the research conducted by MSU faculty has commercial value that may not have been realized without MSU Technologies.

“Our professors are engaged in academic research,” he said. “They don’t work in commercial research, but a lot of our faculty’s research has value in the marketplace.”

MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said MSU Technologies builds a partnership between the university and industry.

“(MSU Technologies) makes it as easy as possible for our researchers to move their ideas forward, and it also makes it easier for the external world to access our researchers more easily and stimulate new business.”

Simon and university researchers participated in a two-day conference earlier this month focusing on the role of Michigan’s three research universities in turning around the state’s economy.

Ian Gray, vice president for MSU research and graduate studies, sees MSU Technologies as a way to accomplish that transformation.

“Our involvement in that turnaround is part of the reason we need to make such a good investment in taking the ideas from our professors and using them to create patents, investments and opportunities for new business,” Gray said.

Gray said the program experienced a setback when Lisa Kuuttila, who was named the program’s director in April, resigned one month after taking office.

Kuuttila returned to a director position she previously held with a similar program, the University of New Mexico’s Science & Technology Corporation.

Gray said Kuuttila’s departure was a disappointment, but Poterala’s history with the university and his relations with faculty contributed to him being the right man for the job.

“It gave us chance to build from scratch, to build from within and to do it MSU’s way,” Gray said. “We were able to find someone who is very suitable to accomplish the goals of the university.”