In 1968, an Institutional Patent Agreement was signed between the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) and Department of Health, Education and Welfare (predecessor to the Department of Health and Human Services). The agreement was spearheaded by Howard Bremer, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s patent counsel and president of the newly formed Society of University Patent Administrators (SUPA).

In 1968, after a series of negotiations, Bremer, together with DHEW’s patent counsel Norman Latker and UW-Madison special assistant to the president Bill Young, obtained the first of a new breed of contract between universities and federal agencies, known as the Institutional Patent Agreement (IPA). Signed between the UW-Madison and the DHEW, the IPA granted patent rights to the UW-Madison on DHEW-funded inventions, giving the university the freedom to license these technologies to companies.