Investigators versus the institution
Anna Kushnir
Monday, 07 July 2008 15:06 UTC
Discoveries made in laboratories affiliated with academic institutions are typically granted to the institution, not to the investigator. How much negotiating power does an individual investigator have in the process of obtaining a patent? What rights does the individual investigator maintain under a patent?
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Replies
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Anna,
In practice, generally not very much negotiating power or leverage – use the institutions laboratories, equipment, etc, and discoveries/IP rights belong to the institution.
Some exceptions are made however in special circumstances. If you have a scientist who has been working on developing material X for a substantial time, an institution hires this individual to work in their lab, he/she may be in a position to negotiate some benefits retained for himself on material X.
In other instances, insitutions may work out some sort of royalty agreement with the investigator/scientist, again this really depends on how much of the investigators own time/resources has been invested in development.
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Thank you so much for your response, Rahan. Just to clarify, you are saying that the investigator does not often retain many rights to the intellectual property? What are the typical terms of a patent, when it comes to the investigator?
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