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.

The CRCs IP principles and approach will be defined with the Partner Agreements and any Project Agreements.

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.