L17 R&D Contracts
Intellectual Property rights form the central issue in negotiating R&D contracts
R&D Contracts involve :
Background IP : IP which contractors and clients bring to the R&D project
Foreground IP: IP which is developed in the course of the R&D project.
The client should be concerned to ensure freedom to use the technology developed for them and may want to ensure that competitors do not have access to the same technology1. R&D contracts will usually include provisions regarding IP including a licence or assignment and regarding protection of confidential information that the parties may exchange.
R&D contracts involving many contributors may raise issues of EC competition law 2.
Competition law relating to simple licensing agreements is referred to later but the competition law relating to R&D contracts forms a special case. Brief reference is made to the special EC regulations dealing with it later in this tutorial.
1 In some cases a client may want as many people as possible to use the technology in order to encourage it's adoption as a standard thus giving the client a competitive advantage.
2 These are governed inter alia by EC Art.81 and 82 (formerly Art.85 and 86 of the Treaty of Rome) and EC Regulation 2659/2000 |
