Toiling away for years in the basements of Harvard's buildings, famous professors and nameless graduate students often strive for that elusive sign of success: the patent.

But a patent means more than just the completion of research. A patent can mean money. And that is where Joyce Brinton, director of Harvard's Office for Trade and Technology Licensing (OTTL), comes in.

"We try and find out about inventions that are being made by the faculty," Brinton says. "Once we hear about an invention and get a description, we evaluate if it is something we can get a patent for or if it has commercial application."

Then Brinton's office begins the process of obtaining a patent and finding a good company to hold the patent's license, she says. After that happens, Harvard begins to earn royalties.

The income from patent royalties has grown from $24,000 in 1980 to more than $5.7 million in fiscal year 1994, and continues to grow by between 20 and 30 percent per year, Brinton says.

A large part of that income comes from the Medical School, which produced the patents for Harvard's two biggest money earners, Cardiolite and Sequenase. According to Brinton, while 55 percent of the patents are from the Med School, those patents bring in about 70 percent of the income.

Cardiolite is a substance that uses small levels of radiation to take pictures of the heart. It was developed by Alan Jones, associate professor of radiology, and MIT researcher Alan Davidson.

Sequenase is a chemical that helps researchers find the sequence of molecules that make up DNA. It was invented by Charles Richardson, Wood professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology, and Stanley Tabor, lecturer at the Medical School, and is licensed to the United States Biochemical Corporation.

Cardiolite and Sequenase each earn more than $1 million dollars annually for Harvard.

The biggest money earners outside of the Medical School are two chemistry modeling software programs developed by the chemistry department.

But patents that earn that much are rare, Brinton says. Only approximately 20 percent of Harvard's patents earn more than $100,000 per year.

When income from large patents comes in to Harvard, if is divided among different areas of the University.

If income from a patent is more than $50,000, 25 percent of the income goes to the inventor, 20 percent to the inventor's lab, 20 percent to the inventor's department and 20 percent to the inventor's school, Brinton says.

An additional 15 percent goes into a fund administered by the President's office. The fund is used to "support technology transfer teachniques, or scientific research, or developing innovative teaching methods," according to Brinton.

Stanford's Office of Technology Licensing has a similar breakdown, although it garners patent royalty income of $38 million, compared, to Harvard's $5 million per year. Stanford's royalty income is growing at the same rate as Harvard's.