ATHENS, Ohio -- Ohio University honored 23 faculty, staff and student scientists and engineers for their work Monday at the annual Inventors' Appreciation Dinner. The event recognizes university researchers who are moving innovations from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Ohio University has received a total of 55 U.S. patents for inventions, including four new patents in the past year. Inventions include a device that could be used in the exhaust systems of coal-fired power plants to reduce harmful emissions, as well as a new semiconductor material that could be used in a wide variety of optoelectronic devices, such as computer monitors and television screens.

The Inventors' Appreciation Dinner also highlighted a new partnership between the university's Edison Biotechnology Institute and Battelle Memorial Institute, a Columbus-based international research and development organization.

Charles Burdick, vice president and managing director of pharmaceutical products for Battelle, spoke about how the collaboration with Ohio University, called the Southeastern Ohio Science and Technology Commercialization Initiative, will foster the creation of new start-up businesses in southeastern Ohio. The partnership is intended to deliver faculty discoveries and innovations to the public and could yield high-tech companies designed to develop new products for use in health care, agriculture and other industries.

"Ohio University has a remarkable record of placing intellectual property in commercial ventures, considering the size of the institution," said Burdick, the keynote speaker at the event. "Our interactions with faculty and administrative staff have had an ease to them that indicates we can work well together."

Ohio University and Battelle are in the process of identifying faculty-generated biotechnology innovations that have pharmaceutical and other medical applications that could be commercialized.

"We're tremendously excited and pleased that we've been able to establish this relationship with Battelle," said Gary Meyer, assistant vice president for economic and technology development at Ohio University. "It gives us the opportunity to dramatically accelerate the technologies, discoveries and ideas developed by Ohio University inventors."

In addition to spotlighting the university's partnership with Battelle, the event recognized a number of faculty, staff and student inventors who in the past year have received U.S. patents, submitted patent applications, or disclosed new inventions to the university's Technology Transfer Office -- the first step in the intellectual property process. Ohio University ranks first in Ohio for invention disclosures per total research dollars spent.

"We continue to be one of the most efficient universities in the country when you look at the amount of intellectual property produced by our faculty and staff," Meyer said.

Recipients of the inventors awards include faculty, staff and students from the university's Edison Biotechnology Institute and Laboratory Animal Resources. Award winners from the Russ College of Engineering and Technology represented the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Department of Chemical Engineering. Award winners from the College of Arts and Sciences represented the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Department of Mathematics.

The event is sponsored by the Technology Transfer Office, which is part of the Vice President for Research division, the Vice President for Research and the Office of Ohio University President Robert Glidden.