Tag Archives: partnerships

Consultant: Protect Thyself

Posted on by | Leave a reply

For economic impact and research translation, universities and faculty are attracting increased interest.  Industry has needs for testing, sponsored research, student involvement, and consulting.

Consulting activities offer splendid opportunities for faculty members to  increase  your effectiveness and broaden your experience in relation to your functions at OSU, as well as to be of service to the community, private sector, nation,  and/or world. Yet the development of  appropriate relationships with industry is becoming more complex.

Companies are becoming especially aggressive on intellectual property ownership clauses within consulting agreements. Certain clauses, if not modified, have the potential to block your OSU research well into the future.   For protection,  you need to make sure the agreement does the following – at least

  • Specifically excludes areas of current and potential future research at OSU
  • Constrains the intellectual property ownership obligation to the consulting time period
  • Limits the confidentiality period to a reasonable period (3-5 years)
  • Defines the scope of work specific to the work performed

Also, for your protection, please make certain all of your work is documented. A good practice is to keep separate notebooks for your consulting and for your work at OSU.

I’ve reviewed  many consulting agreements for faculty, and am happy to do so for you.  I’ll help make sure you are not providing conflicting obligations, and that you retain research freedom well into the future.

See more information

Thanks

- Brian Wall, Director, Office for Commercialization and Corporate Development, OSU

comments to this blog are welcome

Our Obligation for Application

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Bringing the fruits of OSU research results out of the lab and to the public -  a nice thing to do.dark blue grape cluster and orange leaves

Yet it’s  more than that. It’s our University’s obligation as a publicly funded institution.

The Bayh-Dole Act obligates us to “use the patent system to promote the utilization of inventions arising from federally supported research or development.”

The Oregon State University research enterprise takes this responsibility seriously. It is built into the mission of this land-, sea-, space-, sun grant institution. Our Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) is committed to  facilitating OSU research “to impact the world.”  In fact, this issue is becoming so important, we are in the midst of an expansion (and renaming)  of OTT to incorporate greater capacity for new business development and industrial relations.  Stay tuned for more on that subject soon.

Commercializing of OSU inventions. Taking our research results to the marketplace. Building ever-stronger partnerships with industry. Contributing to economic growth. All of these activities are part of our effort to benefit  the local, regional, national, and world community.

Almost every grant proposal that OSU faculty submits these days includes a section about “outreach.” From the beginning of an idea, we are getting into the habit of thinking ahead to the so what? factor.

(At the same time, OSU does still value and support basic research, and high-risk explorations. We’ll discuss those  in other posts.)

Also,  Bayh-Dole will be considered for reauthorization in the next Congress.  Your thoughts are important to me.  I’ve been asked by our members of Congress to help stimulate discussion on these issues, so please feel free to give me your input.
[ed. note: If you want to do so via this blog, open a specific blog entry by clicking on its title (rather than staying the general “archives” page) and scroll down to the “reply” section.]

- Rick Spinrad, VP for Research