Who owns what at LAU, in plain language.
The Intellectual Property Policy decides ownership, protection and revenue sharing. This page explains it. The policy itself is linked at the end.
Six kinds of IP you might already have.
Patents
Protect how something works: a device, a process, a composition, a method. Need novelty, so file before you publish.
Copyright and software
Protect code, documentation, media and designs automatically on creation. Licensable without a patent.
Know-how and trade secrets
Unpublished technical knowledge, recipes and methods. Valuable when kept confidential and licensed with support.
Data and databases
Curated datasets carry rights of their own and can be licensed for research or commercial use.
Trademarks
Names and marks. Relevant when a spinout or product brand is formed.
Research tools
Cell lines, reagents, instruments, test rigs. Shared under material transfer agreements or licensed non-exclusively.
Ownership, case by case.
Seven situations that cover almost everything that happens at a university.
[1]Inventions made with LAU resources
Owned by the University under the IP Policy. Inventors share in any revenue and are named on all filings.
[2]Scholarly works
Books, articles, lecture materials and artworks stay with their authors, unless commissioned or made under a sponsored agreement.
[3]Student work
Students own work created for courses unless it uses LAU resources beyond the ordinary, or is part of a sponsored project. Graduate research with faculty usually falls under the policy.
[4]Sponsored research
The sponsored research agreement sets the terms. The default is University ownership with an option for the sponsor to license.
[5]Consulting
Work done under LAU's consulting policy for an external client is governed by that agreement. Tell the TTO if it touches your LAU research.
[6]Startups in LAU Engine programmes
A startup whose technology was built outside LAU, without LAU resources, owns its intellectual property in full, including anything developed during an LAU Engine programme. The TTO helps those founders protect it.
[7]Visitors and collaborators
Joint ownership is possible. Share the collaboration agreement with the TTO early so inventorship and ownership are mapped before filing.
Revenue sharing
After LAU recovers the costs of protection and licensing, net revenue is divided in three equal parts: one third to the inventors, one third to the University, and one third to the inventors' school or department.
The inventors' share is personal income, paid directly. The school's share supports research in the unit that produced the invention.
Inventors
paid directly, as personal income
University
reinvested in research and the office
School or department
supports the unit that produced the invention
After LAU recovers the costs of protection and licensing. Governed by the Intellectual Property Policy.
Inventorship is not authorship.
An inventor is someone who contributed to the conception of the invention as claimed. Running the experiments, supervising the lab or funding the work does not by itself make someone an inventor. Getting this right matters: a patent with the wrong inventors can be invalid.
The TTO and external counsel determine inventorship with you during evaluation. Disagreements are resolved before filing, not after.
Confidentiality, NDAs and MTAs
Talking to a company before filing is fine under a non-disclosure agreement. Sending or receiving physical materials needs a material transfer agreement. The TTO issues both.
Forms and documents
- Disclosure
- A confidential description of an invention submitted to the TTO. Not a patent application.
- Prior art
- Everything already public that could affect whether an invention is new.
- Priority filing
- The first patent application, which sets the date against which novelty is judged.
- PCT
- An international patent application route that keeps options open in many countries for 30 months.
- Licence
- Permission to use IP under agreed terms, in exchange for fees, royalties or equity.
- Option
- A right to take a licence later, usually for a fee and a fixed period.
- Royalty
- A percentage of sales paid to LAU by a licensee.
- Spinout
- A new company formed to commercialise LAU IP, licensed from the University.
Read the policy, then talk to us.
The Intellectual Property Policy is the governing document. This page is a guide to it, not a substitute.