Employees of The Texas A&M University System are required by policy to assign the rights in inventions and new technologies created in research to the Texas University A&M System. Our office works to protect intellectual property (IP) rights and license these inventions and technologies to companies when the opportunity exists.
More importantly, the research you perform is world-class. We want to work with you to help bring it from the lab or field to practical use. We begin by evaluating the opportunity for IP protection, and the commercial opportunity (e.g. the opportunity to license your invention or technology to a company that will use, make, and sell products using the invention or technology).
Additionally, you may be working with a company that sponsored research in your lab or research program. Naturally, that sponsor has the first right to negotiate for a license to IP rights in inventions coming from the research they fund. Our office negotiates with these companies to arrive at agreements under terms that allow the company to commercialize the technology and provide a financial return back to us. You share in those financial returns as an inventor or creator of the IP.
We see many technologies disclosed every year. All of these represent great research, however not all of these will move on to the next steps of seeking IP protection and commercialization via licensing. We will provide you the reasons for our decisions in each case. This information may be useful in your future research and for licensing purposes. A decision not to pursue licensing for the results of your research is not indicative of the quality of your research. From a research perspective, the value exists intrinsically in your results, and the lack of IP rights availability and/or commercial opportunity does not diminish that.
We welcome you to contact us if you have an invention to disclose, have been approached by a company interested in your research, are working in an area of research that you believe may result in future commercial opportunities, or even if you just want to learn more about our office and what we do.