Licensing

Research materials are essential to the practice of modern life sciences experimentation. Cell lines, model animals, DNA constructs, and screening assays each represent a tool for testing and validating hypotheses of biological function and human health. Each offers a perspective into biology that cannot be replicated without access to the material.

Research materials are developed in multiple environments: university laboratories, startup companies, biotechnology companies, hospitals, non-profit research clinics. Some of the materials are patented; many are not. These tools are frequently licensed out to other institutions through material transfer agreements” (MTAs). Thousands of MTAs are signed each year in the biological sciences, covering such diverse materials as genes, proteins, chemicals, tissues, model animals, software, databases, "know-how" and reagents.

Although “standard” material transfer agreements exist (the Uniform Biological Material Transfer Agreement, or UBMTA, was developed in 1995) empirical research confirms that the licensing of materials remains a problem. A complex set of interlocking licenses covering dozens of different materials imposes significant transaction costs simply to gain the opportunity to begin research.

The long-term impact of such complex webs of intellectual property is severe. University technology transfer offices can become clogged with requests that ought to be routine. The end result benefits no one – less research, less innovation, less diffusion of knowledge.

In many cases, a standard, open framework for managing material transfer can catalyze innovation. We are working with foundations, universities, corporations, venture capitalists, non-profit institutes, and inventors on standard legal terms, educational materials and curricula, organizational designs (technology trusts, patent pools).

This effort is exploratory. It contemplates the traditional role of public interest legal group, extending beyond copyright into the realms of patents, technology transfer and intellectual property licensing. We are interested in exploring questions such as:

• How can funding organizations, corporations and universities utilize standard, open agreements to facilitate licensing of intellectual property and exchange of materials?
• Which existing agreements are good targets for standardization?
• What value would standard, open legal approaches bring for orphan diseases and health products in the developing world?

How SC-Licensing Works:

SC-Licensing is guided by a group of expert advisers from both the sciences and the law and by the scientific community. We build “requirements” through public listserv discussion and the Licensing Working Group – in much the same spirit as the functional specifications for software are developed.