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IP-Wahl-O-Meter (Beta)

The IP-Wahl-O-Meter is aimed at start-up teams at universities and non-university research institutions who want to equip their spin-off created at the scientific institution with intellectual property (IP) and are at the very beginning of the negotiation process with the technology transfer organisation or patent management of their alma mater.

IP transfer - why & for whom??

Have you invented something or developed software as an employee at a university or researchinstitution? Then it is often the case that the rights to this IP belong to the employer (researchinstitution). If you then want to set up a company and need the IP to realise your business model, therights to this IP must be purchased from the academic institution. In practice, there is a wide variety ofconditions for this. The most common overarching models for granting rights (=IP exploitation models) are compared in this Wahl-O-Meter.

Happy testing!

This beta version of the IP-Wahl-O-Meter was developed by Christoph Heynen, Deputy Head of S-Outreach and Head of the AG Gründungsberatung & Entrepreneurship at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, as well as with input and feedback from the IP-Transfer 3.0 pilot group and from founding teams.

If you have any questions or feedback on the IP-Wahl-O-Meter, please contact us at ip-transfer@stifterverband.de

Data protection notice: No personalised data is collected, all information is anonymous and will not be passed on to third parties.

Intellectual Property (IP)	This includes all intellectual creations that (could) create value and are legally protectable in some way. Examples are inventions, software, graphics/art (images, music, etc.), know-how, etc.
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)	This includes all rights with which intellectual property can be protected - in particular: Patents (for inventions), utility models, copyrights (e.g. for software), but also designs or trade marks.
Property Rights (Schutzrechte)	= Intellectual Property Rights; in the context of IP transfer in the form of patents, it is important to note that this can involve both patent applications and granted patents (it often takes 3 to 5 years for a patent to be granted).
IP transfer / IP granting	Abbreviated collective term: This refers to various legal transactions in which intellectual property rights or rights of use to intellectual property rights are transferred from an entity with legal capacity (e.g. university or higher educational institution) to another entity with legal capacity (e.g. company).
(Partial) exclusivity	IPR can be transferred in the following ways: (a) exclusive (no one else can use the IP), partially exclusive (exclusivity exists only in certain fields of application, for the other fields the IPR can be granted to third parties) or non-exclusive (third parties can also be granted all rights). The more exclusive, the more expensive an IP transfer is for the buyer / startup or company. However, startups will always have an interest in maximising exclusivity in order to keep competitors at bay.
Rights of use / licence	Authorisation to commercially exploit the intellectual property rights. This means that someone can be the owner of the intellectual property rights, but grant the rights of use to a third party (e.g. a startup) (= licence). If she/he grants the rights of use exclusively, she/he can no longer commercially exploit the IPR himself.
IP licensing vs. IP sale	An IP transfer can be carried out by licensing (i.e. granting the rights of use) or by selling the property rights - with the exception of copyrights: here only rights of use can be transferred.
Exit / also "trigger event" for virtual shares	These definitions apply to utilisation models that include participation of the scientific institution (a) by means of so-called "virtual shares" or (b) as a shareholder in the company: The following events are summarised under these terms: Sale of the startup company to another company (usually a large corporation), IPO of the former startup company, sale of significant assets of the startup company to another company. - In all these cases, proceeds are generated from the sale/IPO (initial public offering), which are distributed among all shareholders (plus the holders of virtual shares, if applicable) in proportion to their shares (without going into too much detail, e.g. liquidation preferences).