Advanced Grid Research Workshops
through European and Asian Co-operation
Intellectual Property Rights in EC
projects
Bruno Le Dantec
http://www.gridatasia.net
E-mail: [email protected]
What is it about ?
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) govern the
ownership, transfer, dissemination and use of research results
generated during FP6 projects
and this at any time of the project/proposal life
Preparation: patent searches to identify prior ownership, possible IPRprotected areas, …
Negotiation: specific IPR provisions to be agreed if needed (consortium
agreement), practical IPR management, …
life:
protection of the results, management of resulting IPR, granting
of access rights, …,
After:
dissemination of the results, use of the results by partners or
third parties
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Why is it needed ?
Clarify ownership of results to ensure a smooth implementation of
the project
•
•
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Increase certainty of participants’ intellectual property
Protect European Commission investment
Make available access rights in order to
– promote the use of the knowledge (results of the project)
– promote the dissemination of the knowledge
•
•
Same rules for each instrument (IP, NoE, Strep, SSA, CA)
Same rules for each participant
•
Two notions: Know-how & knowledge
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Know-how
Pre-existing Know-how
– know-how needed to carry out the project or to use its results
– held by a contractor before the project starts or acquired in
parallel with the project (sideground)
– can be protected or secret information
– always remain the property of the partner in question
– access rights shall be granted on written request
Points to be considered
– identify the information available and needed for the project
– list what information will be put into or excluded from the
project
– decide how the pre-existing know-how will be accessed both
during and after the project
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Knowledge
Knowledge
– knowledge is what contractors "get out of" the project
– covers both information and rights.
– is owned by:
– the contractor who carried out the work generating the K
– where several contractors, they must agree on the allocation
and the terms of exercising the ownership
– can be transferred with the EC agreement
Points to be considered
– if capable of commercial/industrial application, shall be
protected by the participant (s) or EC
– partners can use other partners knowledge if they need it, but
limited:
– for carrying out their own work under the project
– for using their own knowledge
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Access rights
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Governing documents
EC contract & Annex II to EC contract
• mandatory regulations, may be sufficient for most of the
projects
•
http://www.cordis.lu/fp6/find-docspecific.htm#modelcontracts
Consortium agreement (CA)
• specify or supplement the provisions of the EC contract
• cover all major management issues, intellectual property,
ownership, access rights...
• list granted and excluded pre-existing know-how
• the Consortium Agreement is obligatory - exceptions
• must be signed before the start of the contract
• can be updated at any time
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Check list
Access to know-how
– could be difficult to identify pre-existing KH needed or to be excluded
– should ensure that the partner is free to grant access to the KH
– private companies may be reluctant to share their know-how
Knowledge generated must be exploited
– long term research // applied research - open source // proprietary
solution
– difficulties to identify who produced the knowledge in large projects
– private companies having affiliates may want the knowledge produced
to be used by all their affiliates - IBM, HP, FT…
– carefully check the content of any publications to avoid dissemination
of “protected” knowledge
– check the ownership of knowledge produced by employees
– EC can decide to directly exploit the results if parties are reluctant in…
Difficulties to sign the EC contract governed by the Belgium law
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Remember
Clear management of IPR will allow
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Fair relations
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Good results
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Strong Dissemination
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Use of results
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More informations
www.ipr-helpdesk.org
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