What happens when a university has some technology with commercial potential but doesn’t know how to further develop it? Or when a company doesn’t have the time or resources to delve into the fundamental reasons why its products, goods or services work or don’t work? Seems like a perfect reason to start a collaboration between a university research team and a company, but despite good intentions, these projects often get stuck and sometimes never get off the ground.
Why? There is a collision in missions, cultures, laws and regulations that get in the way of getting interesting work done.
For example, the mission of universities to educate, create and disseminate knowledge comes in direct conflict with corporations’ desire to maintain all competitive advantages and create goods and services that increase shareholder value.
Then there is the issue of who owns any intellectual property or patents that protect the research findings that come out of a collaboration. Corporations have typically assumed they own the output from projects for which they pay.
While that sounds reasonable, the university may not always be in the position to grant the patent rights to a company if the project was conducted in facilities built and/or supported by the government (1980 Bayh-Dole Act). The Bayh-Dole Act places the burden of moving government-sponsored research into the commercial domain by allowing universities to own the intellectual property generated and transfer it to the community.
Licensing the patents becomes another contentious issue as one size does not fit all, and the terms are entirely industry-sector, university and company dependent. Pharmaceutical patents can lead to significant licensing revenues for the university if successful drugs are developed as a result of the collaboration. However, engineering projects typically do not have the same returns since the project may develop one part/function of a multidimensional product.
Finding the sweet spot for collaboration between these entities can be challenging, but there are many benefits that make it worth the hurdles in cultures and operating environments. Lexmark International and University of Kentucky have been working to overcome these hurdles. They are working on groundbreaking research in various areas such as radio frequency identification to use in printer and printed information identification and tracking.
The University-Industry Demonstration Partnership (UIDP) is an organization dedicated to building these collaborative partnerships in the United States.The UIDP, as part of the National Academies of Science, was formed in 2006 and has grown to include 100 entities from large and small private and public universities and companies in a variety of industrial sectors — aerospace, agriculture, biotechnology, chemicals, consumer products, defense, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and software. Government interests and key professional organizations are also engaged.
The organization meets twice a year, providing a neutral and open forum for university and industry representatives to meet and discuss issues that can often slow down collaboration. The UIDP meetings are focused on a specific industrial sector to dig into the issues unique to collaborations in that space.
The next meeting will be held Oct. 16-19 at the Griffin Gate Marriott in Lexington. Hosted by Lexmark and the University of Kentucky, the meeting will focus on both software/business process management and advanced manufacturing.
The manufacturing sector accounts for about 72 percent of all private sector research and development (R&D) spending, employs about 60 percent of U.S. industries’ R&D workforce, and is an important driver of future economic growth.
Software collaboration has its issues, such as how to address proprietary software and platforms, how to determine intellectual property ownership and the rights an intellectual contributor is entitled to retain, and how to manage intellectual property and licensing given that the technology might be out of date before a patent is granted.
The meeting will include workshops directed by a team of presenters with extensive experience negotiating industry-university agreements for these specific sectors. They will provide case studies, share best practices and walk through a sample agreement. Strategies for the timely negotiation of contractual issues that arise in these types of collaborations will be introduced and discussed.
There will also be panel discussions addressing intellectual property management and effective marketing of skills and needs, as well as metrics for evaluating the success of the collaboration.
Keynote speakers will share successes and failures in business process management, university industry collaborations in Kentucky, leveraging social media for collaboration, and recruiting from collaborations.
Participating companies and universities from around the country include APLU, Alltech, AUTM, HP, IBM, Lexmark, Owens Corning, Procter and Gamble, Ohio State University, University of Kentucky and the University of North Carolina.
The meeting is open to all businesses, universities and government agencies interested in learning how to work together. Registration information can be found online at www.uidp.org.
Rebecca Silveston-Keith, Ph.D., is global program manager for university collaborations at Lexmark International. Taunya A. Phillips is assistant vice president for commercialization and economic development at the University of Kentucky.