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Intellectual Property

The CRC will be both a user and developer of significant intellectual property (IP) and is required under the Commonwealth Grant Agreement to ensure that it has a plan to manage and monitor intellectual property protection. It is important to establish the position of the CRC in relation to IP matters and communicate that clearly to members and partners as they are engaged.

Suggested guiding principles relating to IP and the CRC are:

  • The CRC’s goal is for the outcomes, outputs and IP from its projects to be utilised in industry at scale – generating positive industry impacts and through the application of solutions, new knowledge and innovations resulting from CRC research projects.
  • Background IP and Background IP Improvements will be owned by the Party contributing such Background IP and will be used for the specified Activities for which these have been contributed;
  • Project IP will be mapped out, defined and agreed with project participants prior to projects commencing to determine the best IP ownership and licensing structure to achieve the project objectives and maximise impact and ensure public benefit is prioritised.
  • When in doubt, IP ownership should incentivise the commercialisation and adoption of that IP to address industry challenges.
  • Non-project IP will be owned by the CRC and the CRC will enter into agreements with Partners and project participants regarding access, utilisation and licensing of Non-project IP;
  • IP operating principles will be consistent with the National Principles of Intellectual Property Management for Publicly Funded Research published by the Australian Research Council.
  • Student IP. The default position for postgraduate students in most Australian institutions is that the student will own the IP that he or she generates. A CRC must ensure it has control of its IP and, generally, students are asked to assign their IP to their home institution, which in turn adheres to the IP rules established under the CRC Partner Agreement. Students should be assisted in understanding the arrangement as they are not employees. In many cases, the CRC will only provide partial payment for their stipend (i.e. a top-up award). Student supervisors are often naive about IP issues and may even assign students to CRC projects without the knowledge of the CRC (they might simply see it as "an extra pair of hands"). Ensure regular communication about handling IP to avoid problems down the track.

The CRCs IP principles and approach will be defined with the Partner Agreements and any Project Agreements. The ownership and management of Intellectual Property is very likely to be the main point of concern among participants in the CRC. Whether the IP is owned at the level of the project or CRC and how and when decisions are made on the exploitation of the IP arising from a project will be of the strongest interest of members. General principles will have been decided during the bidding phase, but it is during the establishment phase that it becomes 'real' for members. If participating companies (particularly SMEs) see long or convoluted approval processes associated with the use of IP, they may not proceed with membership.

It is important to recognise that members in a CRC will have different viewpoints on the use and ownership of IP - a private small business will be very different to a public university, for example. There is also a major disparity in the respective ability of these organisations to argue their point of view. An SME paying a lawyer on an hourly basis will have less patience and ability to argue than a large organisation with lawyers on staff. For these reasons, the CRC should take a sympathetic leadership role and not simply leave it to lawyers to argue. There can be a significant member 'churn' at this stage of establishment, which is highly undesirable for the start of a CRC.

The CRC is required to maintain an IP Register for each project defining all IP contributed to, utilised and generated by the project.

The CRC will also report any IP created as part of its annual reporting to the CRC Program Team.

 

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