TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER LICENSING OPPORTUNITY: Passive Smart Container (MSC-TOPS-36)

NASA’s Technology Transfer Program solicits inquiries from companies interested in obtaining license rights to commercialize, manufacture and market the following technology. License rights may be issued on an exclusive or nonexclusive basis and may include specific fields of use. NASA provides no funding in conjunction with these potential licenses.

NASA's Johnson Space Center has developed a Passive Smart Container to monitor and track items that are too small to tag individually. Although Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is being used widely for pallet and box level tracking in the commercial sector, significant technology gaps remain for tracking dense quantities at the item level. This system uses RFID circuits to identify the fill level in a container and could be easily converted for use in industries such as individual health care management, pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution inventory tracking, and retail and supply chain inventory management. Use of this technology enables the manufacturer, distributor supplier or user to easily manage and control an inventory of small items that are difficult to tag such as bulk grain foods, liquids, pills, mechanical parts (nuts, bolts, and washers) and small electronic components. This NASA Technology is available for your company to license and develop into a commercial product. NASA does not manufacture products for commercial sale. 

To express interest in this licensing opportunity, please submit a license application through NASA’s Automated Technology Licensing Application System (ATLAS) by visiting https://technology.nasa.gov/patent/MSC-TOPS-36   

If you have any questions, please e-mail NASA’s Technology Transfer Program at Agency-Patent-Licensing@mail.nasa.gov with the title of this Technology Transfer Opportunity as listed in this SAM.gov notice and your preferred contact information. For more information about licensing other NASA-developed technologies, please visit the NASA Technology Transfer Portal at https://technology.nasa.gov/. 

These responses are provided to members of NASA’s Technology Transfer Program for the purpose of promoting public awareness of NASA-developed technology products, and conducting preliminary market research to determine public interest in and potential for future licensing opportunities. No follow-on procurement is expected to result from responses to this Notice.