In 1992, Mr. Dakin led the formation of a Colorado coalition of government agencies, educational institutions and non-profit organizations resulting in the receipt of a U.S. Economic Development Administration grant to the former Colorado Advanced Technology Institute (CATI). Mr. Dakin was a member of the CATI team that authored the State of Colorado Technology Transfer Plan for Economic Development.
In 1998 and 1999, Mr. Dakin worked with SENCO, the world leader in pneumatic fastening systems for the construction industry. Mr. Dakin participated on a team that took an abandoned research project and arranged for its successful worldwide license to a large European corporation. The technology involved a nail gun that made use of a nitrocellulose propellant.
Mr. Dakin was awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1995. Acting as the Principal Investigator, Mr. Dakin led a research team in a study of small business commercialization of federal inventions. The study resulted in a report entitled the Champion Business Assistance Process.
Within the last five years, Mr. Dakin has participated in raising over $15 million in angel funding and grants for several small businesses and non-profit organizations.
From 1992 to 1997, Mr. Dakin served as an industry advisor to the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center at the University at Buffalo. The Center, using a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, studied and developed experimental programs for the commercialization of assistive technologies (products to improve lifestyles of individuals with physical impairments).
Acting as the Executive Director, in 1998 Mr. Dakin launched a new business called Wave Dance Audio that successfully developed a commercial process for enhancing stereo audio files to add three dimensional spatial information. Services utilizing the process were licensed to Disney in 2001 for application in theme park attractions.
Mr. Dakin is the co-author of book: Technology Transfer: Financing and Commercializing the High Tech Product or Service--From Research to Roll Out. Published in 1991 by Probus Publishing Ltd., the book became widely adopted as a primer on the subject of technology transfer.
During 1992 and 1993, Mr. Dakin served as co-counsel to the Gates Rubber Company in complex litigation involving international commercial espionage by Bando Chemical Industries of Japan. Representation led to a judgment in favor of Gates Rubber Company on claims for copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation. Mr. Dakin led a team of law firms that authored the appellate brief. The 10th Circuit opinion established legal precedence regarding copyright ownership of computer programs. Gates Rubber Co. v. Bando Chem. Indus., Ltd., 9 F.3d 823, 843 (10th Cir. 1993)
From 1995 through 1997, Mr. Dakin wrote the SoftLaw column for the IEEE Journal on Software.
Mr. Dakin authored and taught a series of graduate courses on the subjects of technology transfer and technology management. Beginning as a member of the adjunct faculty in 1993 at the University College, University of Denver and continuing at the University of Colorado at Denver within the College of Engineering and Applied Science, Mr. Dakin taught regular classroom and capstone projects through 1997.
Based upon the publication of an article entitled Fingerprinting Computer Programs in Datamation Magazine, Mr. Dakin was invited to participate in a Data Security Leader's Conference by IBM in 1982. In concert with other participants, Mr. Dakin explored the possibility of future problems in data processing, many of which are just now coming into actual existence.
While completing law school, Mr. Dakin served as the Consumer Fraud Investigator for the Shawnee County (Topeka, Kansas) District Attorney’s Office. In 1979, he achieved a new record for successful recoveries in consumer claims filed with the Office.
Mr. Dakin was certified as a New Product Development Professional (NPDP) by the Product Development Management Association in 2003.
