WHOI-90-52

property management organiztion (IPMO), the Resech Corpration. Either the IPMO or
WHOI then actively pursues the commercial
licensing of the patent. During the life of the
institution, WHOI has had only a few patents which have not ben assigned to sponsoring
government agencies. For the most par, therefore, royalties or other compensation flowing to
WHOI for patent licenses has been smalL.
Royalties from the licensing of intellectual propert are distrbute internally according to a set
formula. This formula vares greatly from one institution to the next; the inventor's share ca
range from all of the royalties to 15 percent or less. At WHOI, the inventor recives 50 percent
of net royalties from internally pursued patents or 15 percent or the gross plus 50 percent of
additional net royalties from patents license through the Resech Corpration. One reason for
ths diversity in royalty distrbution policies has to do with the sech for an elusive "balance"
between two distict phenomenons. It is believed that awarding full royalties to an inventor may
create a disincentive for resechers to work together and share idea and resech results within
an institution as they tr to avoid the dilution of royalties. On the other hand, the traditional
solution to this problem -- a policy requiring the sharng of royalties -- may create an incentive
for resechers to leave an institution and claim full royalties for themselves (Farow, In Prep.,
1989). .
Universities generay follow the sae policy as WHOI, although there appes to have been a
trend in the last decde away from the use of IPMOs and toward the establishment of tehnology
licensing and trsfer offices within each university (Johnston and Edwards, 1987). Lage
universities such as MI, Staford, Harard, and Columbia all have tehnology licensing offces.
Some of these offices limit their activities to the licensing stage, as does WHOI, while others
pursue the establishment of spin-off commercial ventures (se below).
Intellectual property created by FFRDCs and other laboratories, which are funded predominantly
with government support, usually is owned by the government and made available to the public
through non-exclusive licenses, unless it is kept seret for national seurity reasons.
A relatively new issue concerning tagible resech property (T) has gained increasing
attention. TR may include biologica organisms, such as those develope through
biotechnologica techniques, or unpatentable resech designs. WHOI has had some limited
experience with the licensing of instrment designs for royalties and with the "trding" of
bacteria obtaned from the deep se, hydrothermal vent, biologica communities for grats from
biotechnology companies. TR is a developing area of intellectua propert and deserves close
attention.
Cooperative Resech Centers. These centers are importt tehnology transfer mechanism at
the national leveL. Beuse there are no national centers established at WHOI, these and some
other technology trsfer mechanisms (discusse below) are represented in Figure 2.
Cooperative resech centers established at universities include the Engineering Reseach Centers
(ERCs) and the Science and Technology Centers (STCs), sta by the National Science
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