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Research Focus
The Unfair Advantage at RIT: Sponsored Research Services
An interview with RIT President Bill Destler and PAETEC ASG President Jack Baron
4/24/2008
It occurred to me that universities need to remember that they are tax-exempt public service organizations. We have a certain duty to try to perform services for both the private and public sectors, and that we might do well to offer a more flexible approach to the question of who would own what as a result of joint research and dev efforts.
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If you look across higher education and partnerships that have or have not occurred between business and higher education, a lot of those relationships have sought to become the next Gatorade for the university, with the university focused on obtaining royalties for many years to come. But the dream hasn't been realized.
Destler: Very few universities or colleges have even made enough money off of their intellectual property royalties to pay for their intellectual property office!
There are just a few examples of schools that have extraordinary success in one or more areas. Usually it's the pharmaceuticals.
It struck a lot of us as being strange that we weren't trying to be more cooperative. Under the plan we offer at RIT, the companies do pay a modest upfront fee--to sort of compensate in advance the university for any intellectual property generated under the contract even if there isn't any intellectual property generated. We get an upfront payment in lieu of future royalties.
CT: What are the basics of the partnership between RIT and PAETEC?
Destler: We'll try to identify areas where they have ideas that they'd like to advance that will require additional research and development before they can be turned into real new products and services. We'll see if we have any expertise that could help them move toward that direction. Then we will basically agree on a statement of work and work with their people to carry out the research and development and try to further the development of new products and services to come out of PAETEC
We're offering our faculty, students and facilities at what we feel is an attractive rate. There's included a small upfront payment for any IP generated from the project which might normally be argued about between eh two organizations. In return for that small upfront payment, we agree in advance that PAETEC will own any IP coming out of that work.
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