Following the example of other major corporate donations this year, Procter & Gamble has announced it is giving more than 40 patents -- along with relevant intellectual property -- covering a new way to rapidly make prototypes of goods to the Milwaukee School of Engineering.

The donation is one of the largest in company history. Commercializing the patents' technology could mean more than $1 billion annually, and the school would receive all licensing revenue for the technology, the company states.

The new Prototype Hard And Soft Tooling (PHAST) technology can shorten the path between three-dimensional modeling of a potential product and prototype production by allowing developers to produce mold inserts much faster.

PHAST technology can produce prototype injection-mold tooling in one-and-a-half to three weeks, rather than the industry average of six to eight weeks.

Procter & Gamble selected the Milwaukee school after a search by an independent expert because MSOE's Rapid Prototyping Center is the only one in the world that uses each of the four leading types of rapid prototyping techniques.

As with many patent donations, the company decided to donate the patents after determining that this particular technology did not fit into its strategic plans. There are other such patents -- stemming from $1.7 billion spent annually on a research and development program -- and the company has begun an initiative to find other educational and research institutions that would be appropriate recipients.

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