In the era of Google and Facebook, innovators need a hand to guide them and patent their innovations.

In an attempt to bridge the gap between the academic dimension of research and marketing the idea, the U.S. Department of Commerce is opening a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office at Cornell University. It will be at the upcoming tech school and help the future engineers in their entrepreneurial ventures.

The announcement was made Tuesday by federal and university officials.

The Cornell NYC Tech, Cornell's applied sciences venture, is all set to enrol its first class next year and currently housed in Google's Manhattan Headquarters. An official has already been placed in the temporary office. When Cornell's tech school will be shifted to university's Roosevelt Island campus, which is scheduled to open in 2017, so will the patent office.

Sue Purvis is the staff member currently at the Google building who will work alongside Cornell staff to implement new programs. This could include anything from one-on-one consulting to classes, reports Wall Street Journal.

The Commerce Department may add staffers in the future, and the new venture could serve as a model for other engineering programs. According to an official, this is the first time the department is collaborating so closely with an academic institution. The expenditure will be shared jointly by the school and the department.

"This will be a resource not just for the tech campus but the entire New York tech community," said Cornell University President David Skorton.

The move is the latest in Mayor Michael Bloomeberg's efforts to match the city of New York to that of others in the nation, such as Silicon Valley, as San Francisco Chronicle points out.

The new applied science school is a joint venture by the Ivy League school and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. It also won the city's 'genius school' contest to use city property and $100 million in seed money to open up the campus in Manhattan.

The first batch of students, numbering 20, will arrive in January. The school's permanent home in Roosevelt Island's $2 billion campus, though opens in 2017, will take until 2037 to be built completely.