Foundations of IP Strategy

In designing opportunities to leverage the research and IP that is generated out of the research institution it is important to account for the different stakeholders that are impacted as well as the diversity of their interests. 

For instance: 

• the research organization will want to continue to have rights for at least on-going research and educational purposes and where possible, will want to have some way to generate a revenue stream to re-invest in more research and/or IP protection. 
• the lead researcher will also want to have the ability to further their research, want to have continued rights of attribution and as in some cases may also want to be able to participate in the commercialization of their research.
• students will likely have similar goals to the researcher with whom they are working and in fact they may well be even more motivated to commercialize the outcomes from the research they are engaged in. 
• Also, increasingly, governments, which fund research institutions, would like these organizations to become more entrepreneurial so that they can generate direct commercialization outcomes to ensure economic growth and prosperity   
• And finally, private funders of the research will likely want rights to commercialize the research and the IP that is generated and may well want to protect their competitive position by limiting what can be done with that research even where they have not funded all of the research but only a small portion of it 
• An understanding of these interests and rules to fence them in is particularly important in order to ensure that the outcomes are optimal. 

To learn more about why IP generated by research institutions is important and the perspectives of different stakeholders, listen to the short clip from Aaron Shull.