Fully Baking Joint IP Ownership into Collaboration Agreements
In today’s technological environment, collaboration between different entities is commonplace, if not inevitable. That is, we are deep into the age of “ Open Innovation ” where companies use external ideas and technologies to accelerate their internal innovation and paths to market. Long gone are the days of “ Closed Innovation ” where companies suffered from NIH (“Not Invented Here”) syndrome and relied solely on their own personnel to develop new products and services. Consequently, intellectual property (IP) law practitioners often find themselves drafting, reviewing and negotiating collaboration-type agreements. Invariably, the issue of who owns any resultant IP arises as this is usually the most contested issue in pre-collaboration discussions. Unfortunately, too often the answer is “we both do!” It seems the since-kindergarten, ingrained notion of sharing supersedes our B.S., M.S., J.D., Ph.D. and/or M.B.A. training in this respect! Pressures to “get the deal done” by our busi...