MIT’s policy on patents, copyrights, and other intellectual property is designed to ensure that innovations are made available to industry and society for the public benefit, while recognizing individual inventors and supporting the open dissemination of research.
For additional details, please visit the MIT Technology Licensing Office website
Copyrights
Under MIT policy, sponsors receive defined license rights to project deliverables. For specified software, documentation, and databases delivered under a project, sponsors may elect a royalty-free, non-exclusive, non-transferable license for internal and commercial use. For other delivered copyrighted materials, sponsors receive a royalty-free, non-exclusive, irrevocable license for internal use. These rights apply only to agreed research deliverables and do not extend to materials such as student theses or journal publications.
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.
For complete information, please see MIT TLO’s “Guide to the Ownership, Distribution, and Commercial Development of MIT Technology, 4th edition”.
For additional information, please see related material:
MIT Technology Licensing Office
All sponsored research is handled through MIT’s Research Administration Services.