For Inventors
Mechanisms of Technology Transfer
Intellectual property belonging to a university can be diffused into the industry to have societal impact in following two ways:
Licensing out technologies to the Industry
A license agreement is a contract between NUST and a third party in which NUST rights to a technology are transferred to the licensee company (without relinquishing ownership) for financial and other benefits. Our main goal in any license agreement is to ensure that the technology will be developed by the licensee for public benefit, complying with Government and NUST policies, and, if successful, providing a reasonable financial return to NUST and the inventors of the technology. License agreements are used with both new, startup businesses and established companies.
Categories of Licensing
- Exclusive License – A valid contract in which an IP owner authorizes another person or entity (called the licensee) to exclusively exercise one or more of the rights (or a portion of such rights) that belong to the IP owner under the IP law.
- Non-Exclusive License – A license in which the same rights to an intellectual property are granted to several licensees within the same scope or field, consecutively or simultaneously.
- License back – An owner sells exclusive rights to another party while getting a non-exclusive license back to use the patent himself – for his own business or products so he is not infringing against himself and is not forced to pay licensing fees to the third party.
NUST Spin-offs and Subsidiary Companies
A university spin-off is a company formed as a consequence of university activity or know-how, regardless of whether registered IP is involved, in which the university holds an equity stake. All NUST officers, staff and Faculty Members are authorized to establish NUST spin off companies.
Formation of Spin-Off
Spin-off company formation and development is assisted by I&C Dte. “Founder’s Guide to Form a Spin-off at NUST” (at attachments) is a guide to the process surrounding spin-off company formation at NUST with a view to managing expectations and optimizing the establishment of successful spin-off companies
Process