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Consulting Agreement: In general, consulting is defined as professional activity related to the person's field or discipline, where a fee-for-service or equivalent relationship with a third party exists. There are many types of consulting relations and fee arrangements, and the precise form entered into may vary. Within the context of technology transfer, consulting arrangements between inventors and licensees are designed to facilitate product development and transfer know-how, a critical element of the technology transfer process.
Copyright: Copyright is a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. A work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Registration is voluntary not mandatory. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. Registration of the copyright, however, is required to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work.
Intellectual Property: Creations of the mind - creative works or ideas embodied in a form that can be shared or can enable others to recreate, emulate, or manufacture them. There are four ways to protect intellectual property - patents, trademarks, copyrights or trade secrets
Invention: An invention is new and useful process, device, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or new or useful improvement upon one of these.
Invention Disclosure: This form is a legal document that creates a record of an invention and provides written notification to the Office of Technology Transfer of the invention. The invention disclosure form is the basis for evaluating the invention for commercial potential and patentability. If the invention includes or consists of new software, supplemental information is required (Software Supplement). If the intellectual property is a work of authorship a Copyright disclosure form is required.
License: The owner of intellectual property (licensor) may grant a license, or give permission under intellectual property laws to authorize a use (such as copying software or using a patented invention) to a licensee, sparing the licensee from a claim of infringement brought by the licensor. A license under intellectual property commonly has several component parts beyond the grant itself, including a term, territory, field of use, due diligence requirements, financial consideration and other provisions deemed vital to the licensor.
Material Transfer Agreements: These agreements are required when sending any materials from Children's Hospital Los Angeles to a third party. They ensure that the hospital’s liability is limited, that the materials are properly handled and used by the recipient and that the Hospital has the right to send the materials out. Many organizations require that Children's Hospital Los Angeles sign Material Transfer Agreements when sharing research materials with Children's Hospital Los Angeles researchers.
Evaluation Agreements: These agreements are entered into with prospective licensees who wish to use chemical compounds, prototypes, biological materials, copyrighted materials or software programs for evaluation purposes only within a limited timeframe.
Non Disclosure Agreements: These agreements provide protection against misappropriation of non-public information (e.g., inventions, research data, computer software, etc.). They will be put in place prior to disclosing information to a company that is considering funding research and/or licensing technology.
Option Agreements: An option agreement typically gives a company the exclusive right to evaluate a technology for a short period of time prior to executing a full license agreement. In most cases, the option agreement provides for the company to reimburse Children's Hospital Los Angeles’s patent expenses during the option period.
Patent: A patent is an exclusive right granted by the United States (or a foreign government) that allows you to prevent other parties from using, making, selling, offering to sell, or importing your invention for a limited amount of time. In the United States, the term of a patent is 20 years from the date the patent application is filed. After the term of the patent, anyone may use the invention for any purpose without accounting to the patent rights holder. To obtain a patent for an invention, you must file a patent application within the country in which you wish to obtain protection and successfully demonstrate to the patent office that your invention is novel, non-obvious, useful for a particular purpose, and required an inventive step to develop. Patent rights are particularly valuable to companies since they limit the ability of others within their industry to directly compete with their products and/or services.
Research Collaboration Agreements: Most university technologies are early stage and often additional research and evaluation is required to move the technology toward commercialization. If the prospective licensee can't do that research “in-house,” the university inventors may be asked to do it under a sponsored research agreement with the company. The Office of Technology Transfer works with the office Pre-Award Support Services to put such agreements in place.
Trademark: A trademark is a word, name, symbol or device which is used in trade with goods to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. A servicemark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a product. The terms "trademark" and "mark" are commonly used to refer to both trademarks and servicemarks. Trademark rights may be used to prevent others from using a confusingly similar mark, but not to prevent others from making the same goods or from selling the same goods or services under a clearly different mark. Trademarks which are used in interstate or foreign commerce may be registered with the Patent and Trademark Office.
Trade Secret: Information used by an organization, which can be legally protected that is secret to the general public and is a critical asset of the organization. How a product is made or ingredients that go into it, or a customer list, can be protected as a trade secret. Source codes for computer programs and the formula for Coca-Cola® are common examples. The critical requirement for trade secret protection lies in maintaining the secret. Methods or information revealed to the public cannot be protected under trade secret laws.
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