A Colorado Springs-based startup plans to commercialize technology developed at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs that turns fingerprints and facial and hand geometries into secure computer images.

Securics Inc. has signed an agreement to license from the university the biometric technology, which includes four pending patents and four more potential patents, called invention disclosures.

The technologies were developed with more than $10 million in federal grants, won since 2001, by Terry Boult. He is co-founder of Securics and director of the UCCS Vision and Security Technology Lab.

The agreement is just the second licensing agreement on discoveries by UCCS faculty members. In 2003, Newellink Inc., now called Agada Pharmaceuticals Inc., licensed chemical compounds used to treat cancer that were developed by Karen Newell, a UCCS associate biology professor.

The biometric technology is software that turns fingerprints and facial and hand geometries into “biotopes” that can be used to verify someone’s identity for financial transactions, access to secure facilities and other uses, Boult said Tuesday.

“We have exclusive rights to this technology. As biotope technology becomes better known and accepted, it will increase in value and could make us an attractive acquisition candidate,” said Jim Wittenburg, president and co-founder of Securics.

The three-year-old company had an option on the technology for two years while it determined how best to turn Boult’s research into commercial products. Under the licensing agreement, a company controlled by the University of Colorado Technology Transfer Office will get royalty payments and a 6 percent stake in Securics.

“We want to form partnerships with the major players in the biometric security system industry to build our products into their products,” Wittenburg said. “We have six employees now and are hiring two more engineers, but we’ll probably stay at less than 10.”

Boult began researching biometrics to improve security while safeguarding privacy just months before the 2001 attacks. He said he didn’t come up with a “workable solution” for three years — months after moving to UCCS from Lehigh University.

“The problem is when you give up your fingerprint or other biometric, it is then in database,” Wittenburg said. “If you use that biometric to access your bank account and it’s stolen, what can you do? We are creating a way to cancel and control that biometric.”

Biotopes enhance security because they change with every transaction and aren’t stored with the biometric information, Boult said.

Securics says it hopes to generate fees as small as one-tenth of a cent for use of its technology, which could generate $100 million within 10 years, Wittenburg said. The Defense Department and other federal agencies are the biggest customers for biometrics, he said.

“We formed Securics to commercialize this technology because the government will only buy offthe-shelf products from private companies,” Wittenburg said.

Securics is financed mostly from government grants, including one to develop a long-distance outdoor facial-recognition system for the Defense Department.

The university’s Technology Transfer Office, which handles inventions for all four campuses, handled 140 patent applications — including five from UCCS — and completed 75 options and license agreements during the fiscal year ended June 30, the office’s annual report said.

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