Conflict of Interest Situations with Possible Management Plans
Intellectual Property
The mission of the University of Michigan is to create, communicate, preserve, and apply knowledge in the public interest. It is important to recognize that the foremost objective for an institution in a licensing negotiation is to ensure that the University's technology reaches the marketplace in a timely manner for the benefit of the public. Achieving a fair return on the University's (and taxpayers) investment is also an important objective. The University recognizes that faculty start-up companies or companies that have University faculty inventors in management or formal scientific advisory roles present, in some instances, the best opportunities to transfer University technology into the stream of commerce in the public interest. Before entering into an agreement with an outside entity, it's important to consider the following points:
- Intellectual property is material that may be protected under the patent, trademark and/or copyright laws
- Intellectual property made in the performance of an employee's duties is owned by the University
- University employees are expected to disclose such intellectual property to the Office of Technology Transfer
- Equity may be received as consideration for license, for additional consulting, or for future activities
- Inventors are required to wave their share of royalties if they receive equity
- Patentable intellectual property made by the University in the performance of a subcontract under a National Institute of Standards and Technology Advanced Technology Program (NIST ATP) contract must be assigned by the University to the for-profit participants of the project
When reviewing conflict of interest situations, the COI committees will consider the following key points:
- Does the potential exist for pipelining (a channel for inappropriately conveying University-owned intellectual property) University-owned technologies?
- Have all the inventor's rights been appropriately considered, including those of students?
- Does the statement of work in the proposed agreement appropriately protect University intellectual property?
- Does the proposed agreement clearly outline rights to future intellectual property developed as a result of the agreement?
- Does the proposed agreement approprately recognize obligations to the University/government/sponsor?