While not officially a "research institution", MSOE faculty and students pursue research projects to advance their understanding of topics of interest and/or to apply their knowledge in new ways. This is a critical aspect of realizing MSOE's vision to set the standard for preparing leaders to solve the diverse technical challenges of the 21st century. When collaborating with companies, the topic of Intellectual Property (IP) comes up often.  

Objective

The primary objective of the IP management process is to transfer technologies from MSOE to companies with the interest, ability, and resources to commercialize them such that the public can benefit from MSOE inventions. Another objective is to capture a fair portion of the value of the invention for the benefit of the inventors, the department in which the invention was developed and MSOE.  

We understand that companies that choose to engage with MSOE to advance and apply knowledge in a collaborative way want to retain the Intellectual Property they bring to MSOE as part of that collaboration. It is not MSOE's intent to exercise a right over that IP.

Key Elements

To that end, MSOE's IP Policy includes the following key elements:

• MSOE does not choose to exercise rights over any corporate IP brought to MSOE and/or developed in collaboration with MSOE.
• MSOE owns IP for anything deemed to fall under the definition of “University Research”. University Research includes those projects initiated by MSOE faculty or staff using MSOE resources.
• MSOE owns the IP of graduate students employed by MSOE.
• MSOE does not choose to exercise rights over the IP of undergraduate students. Students or faculty who choose to work on a project in partnership with a company may be required to assign some/all of their IP to that sponsoring organization to participate. This will be established as part of the preliminary project proposal.
• Faculty members who would prefer to retain their IP on projects developed in partnership with corporate partners are expected to contract for that work separately and are not permitted to use MSOE resources. These projects are not administered through, or governed by, MSOE.

For additional details, please contact Sheku Kamara, dean of applied research.