Intellectual Property Rights

At IIT Kanpur, we engage with several Indian and multinational companies in carrying out industrial research and we value immensely the mutual exchange of thoughts, ideas and knowledge with them. With an objective of developing long–term relation with our industrial partners we enter into agreements with mutually acceptable terms and conditions. These agreements are put in place both at the organizational level e.g. umbrella agreement between IIT Kanpur and the industry and also at the level of participating project investigators (PIs) i.e. faculty members at IITK and his/her collaborator in the industry. The specific nature of terms and conditions in these agreements depend upon the nature of collaboration and the extent of engagement with the industry. Particularly, care is taken that the agreement addresses the specific needs of the industry and also takes care of the long term goals of the participating organizations.

At IIT Kanpur, we believe that sharing of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) is imperative for any successful collaboration and therefore we have envisioned different modes in which IPR can be shared with our partners.

1. The IP is owned by IIT Kanpur, it is either licensed exclusively/non-exclusively to an industry for a mutually agreed period or its ownership is transferred to an interested industrial partner who wishes to own it.

2. The IP is co-developed and owned by IIT Kanpur and its industry partner, the industrial partner gets the first right for its refusal. In case, the industry partner does not wish to utilize the IP, it is licensed to a third party after mutual consultation with the owners of the IP.

3. The IP is developed at IIT Kanpur, is owned by IIT Kanpur in India and by its industrial partner outside India.

4. IP is developed at IIT Kanpur, but is owned by its industrial partner all over the world.

For all these modes of engaging with an industry partner, the license fee and the royalty are decided after mutual consultation. Care is taken that a project/research work is brought to its logical conclusion so that it generates value for the industry partner and funds for IIT Kanpur for supporting future research and for creating laboratories facilities.