In 2008 Roger L. Geiger prepared this report on corporate-sponsored research for Penn State. It’s the best discussion of the subject I’ve come across. I have been involved in or closely followed a number of the programs–the Intel lablets (some now closed), the HP effort to create a continuum (now apparently abandoned), Open Innovation, the problems with IP in industry research agreements, UARCs (I worked for six years on the NASA Ames UARC), and consortia (ERCs in particular)–that he discusses, and in those areas, he is spot on.
Really, this should be required first reading for folks looking to understand the general character of industry-university collaboration.
The only place that I would disagree is in the conclusions, where Geiger summarizes his interviews on IP conflicts:
Minimize Conflict over IP: Little trust will exist when firms fear that their IP is at risk. Similarly, faculty resent having research relationships obstructed by stipulations for what they regard as improbable IP outcomes. The problem is not with university ownership but with the terms for licenses. This difficulty can apparently be overcome for larger partnerships; it should also be handled flexibly for routine contracts in the interest of building relationships.
The overall point is a great one. And I’m not even disagreeing that this is what his interviewees told him. My argument is that there is much more going on with regard to ownership of IP than simply making the terms happier for companies. The ownership and the terms are deeply entwined, along with the perception of risk (even when utterly unwarranted) that attends to administrative worries about IP, ownership, and licensing.
The “larger partnerships”, companies and faculty are able to get exceptions to policy. That’s where the universities burn up their administrative flexibility. If they were to do it for routine, sub $75K contracts, they would argue 1) that means the policy has de facto changed, or that there is no policy at all, just the judgment of those involved–and you have to understand that judgment means, to an administrator: unfair, whim-aided, inconsistent, unplanned, less than fully documented, race to the bottom, give-away to create massive liability that will haunt the halls for decades after. 2) the inflexibility for the bit players unwilling to make large (meaningful) commitments is precisely what opens up the flexibility in policy to serve the big fish. If a Boeing shows up and wants a NERF to everything, the way to do that is to piss off the little fish that want “flexibility”. The inflexibility is what allows for the big plays, the major initiatives, when there’s something worth the attention of senior administrators on the line.
This kind of reasoning makes sense, even a lot of sense–but it assumes that the university is taking ownership positions, and that it then is responsible for order and consistency and deciding whether the big fish or the little fish should get the flexible, fluffy treatment. Things change if the university is routinely *not* taking ownership positions. Not only does this hugely change the *background rights* issue, but it also changes the scope of obligation for implied licenses, the institutional requirements for risk, indemnification, governing law, and structure of payment. It also changes the role that the university plays in mediating creative work undertaken by its personnel.
Ownership changes mean sweeping, huge changes, so huge you might not see the relationships rise and fall like shrouds if you do not know where to look, or do not believe such relationships exist, and that somehow, by proposing a model, all that matters is the pretty diagram on a page, and then tasking people to “make it so”. Penn State has announced that it is moving away from ownership claims. I could imagine that this report had a lot to do with it–at least I would hope so. [But see what Penn State has done…]