Common use of Intellectual Property Management Clause in Contracts

Intellectual Property Management. The treatment of intellectual property created in connection with the proposed collaboration may vary depending on the nature of the collaborative project. The intellectual property structure of the collaboration should serve the twin goals of preserving flexibility and increasing the community of users and researchers within the collaboration context. A general framework will be developed describing a full spectrum from outright donations or gifts to highly proprietary research, as project needs dictate (see graphic below). Intellectual property rights will be defined in written definitive agreements related to each project. These agreements will address the following: • Single versus joint ownership, especially to the extent any project results in modifications to IBM products; • The need for possible license grants between the parties; • The potential ability to sub-license; and • The decision to contribute (or not) to open source where appropriate. Some examples of how this might work include: • If a project’s objective is basic software development in computational science and engineering, it may be open source or licensable under a BSD-type license (license type to be confirmed in our discussions with STFC); • If a project’s objective is to aid in tool development, pre-existing intellectual property may be brought into play; • If a project’s objective is application oriented, patents and intellectual property ownership will depend on the project and what it may be built on top of; and • If a project involves outside partners, intellectual property rights will be governed by the relationships defined when bringing the partners into the relationship. • The specific terms and licensing arrangements relating to Intellectual Property will be agreed on each Statement of Work for Joint Research Activities