Computational Science, Intellectual Property Rights, and Innovation in the Asia-Pacific Region

Karl Ruping is an Associate at Harvard’s Asia Center, focusing on science policy, academic innovation and intellectual propriety rights in the Asia-Pacific region.  His particular area of interest is patent protection of advances across the computational sciences, including bioinformatics, molecular modelling and high-performance computing.  Karl is also a member of the Asia Center's International Advisory Committee.

In addition to his research interests, Karl has broad industry experience across university technology management, intellectual property rights, and venture funding strategies.  He is an experienced U.S. attorney, member of the NY and MA bar associations, and a registered U.S. patent lawyer with a technical background in bioinformatics and computational sciences.  Karl is founder and managing partner at incTANK Ventures, a venture capital fund investing in early stage, university-sourced technology companies.  He is a founder of, and early investor in, a portfolio of biotech venture with origins in Boston-area universities and research institutes. This includes Agrivida, an agricultural biotechnology venture developing renewable fuels and chemicals from non-food cellulosic biomass; AgaMatrix, an innovative leader in diabetes management with a global distribution network; and Misfit, a digital health venture sold to Fossil Group.  His most recent project is Tiba Biotech, an MIT/Whitehead Institute startup developing nucleic acid vaccines and therapeutics.

Karl’s holds a B.A. in economics from Colby College and a J.D. from Boston University. He was a Doctoral Fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen and the University of Vienna (Austria) after which he went on to a post-doctoral position at the University of Tokyo where he was at both the Faculty of Law and the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology. Karl started his teaching career Temple University where he lectured on European Law, Intellectual Property Rights, and International Patent Law Protection. Before joining the Asia Center he was a Fellow at MIT’s School of Engineering where he advanced a molecular modeling platform funded by the NIH and NSF which eventually became the foundation for a novel educational curriculum for high school chemistry classrooms.

Karl has published numerous articles and book chapters on innovation and intellectual property rights, including Risk Management in Incubators in Management of Technology: Growth Through Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Management if Intellectual Property Rights: Challenges and Best Practices for New Technology Companies in IAMOT Proceedings (2004) and Intellectual Property Protection in University Startups, Annual Meetings of AIChE (2005).