MIT’s Intellectual Property policy is designed to ensure that innovations are made available to industry and society for the public benefit, while recognizing the investigators and supporting the open dissemination of research. MIT’s Intellectual Property Policy may be viewed here.
For additional details, please visit the MIT Technology Licensing Office website
Copyrights
Sponsors receive defined rights to project results. Copyrighted works including software may be generated under sponsored research projects. For specified copyrighted works created in a project, sponsors may obtain internal research use rights and may seek commercial rights.
Patents
Patents may arise from sponsored research. Under U.S. tax regulations, license royalties on university-owned patents must reflect fair market value at the time the patent becomes available, so specific license or royalty terms cannot be set in advance within a research agreement.
Patentable inventions may be created solely by MIT or jointly created by MIT and a sponsor. For inventions created solely by MIT inventors, sponsors may pursue a range of licensing options, including exclusive commercial licenses, non-exclusive commercial licenses, or internal-use licenses to support continued research. Sponsors may also have the ability to obtain exclusive rights for inventions co-owned with MIT.
For complete information about the license process, please see MIT Technology Licensing Office’s website relating to Understanding the Licensing Process.
For additional information, please see related material:
MIT Technology Licensing Office
Office of Strategic Alliances, Transactions & Translation
All sponsored research is handled through MIT’s Research Administration Services.