Tech Transfer - University of Michigan

Leading Innovation

Resources for Industry

We welcome you as a partner in commercializing our technology to achieve our objective of benefiting the public. Working with university-derived inventions can provide terrific competitive advantages for your business, but due to their early stage of development, also inherently involves risk and the need for additional investment. Our office has professionals in licensing, new business development, patent management and marketing to assist you in transferring technologies from the University of Michigan.

What Do We Look for in a Licensee

The decision to license to a prospective licensee is shared by the UM Tech Transfer professional and the inventor(s), whose proactive cooperation is often essential for success. We look for:

How Can We Work Together

Transferring technology is a person-to-person transaction; we want to form a productive, long-term relationship with our licensee. Go to Available Technologies to search for solutions for your business and technology needs. We encourage you to contact us as we can be your guide to a wide range of technology solutions and the researchers behind them. Each technology has the contact information for a Technology Licensing Representative who can assist you. You can also go to our Staff Directory for a full list of our Tech Transfer team. If you are interested in some of our entrepreneurial activities go to Opportunities for Entrepreneurs.

Licensing Process & Agreements

Our licensing process is designed to provide a fair, documented relationship between the University and you, our commercial partners. We strive for a balance: to have incentives to encourage you to invest to commercialize our technology so its benefits reach the public, while providing fair returns to the University for continued research and education.

Once you contact us, we will provide information to assist you in your evaluation. Often a simple Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) allows us to provide additional confidential materials. An Option Agreement can, for a fee and reimbursement of patent costs, provide you with some protection during the evaluation period. Other licensees find that an option is unnecessary, and prefer instead to move quickly towards a License Agreement. To assist you in understanding our standard Option and License Agreements, go to License Agreement Terms. Material Transfer Agreements can be constructed to allow authorized use, by a company or another university, of chemical compounds, prototypes, biological materials and software programs within specific limits.

Evaluation of an invention may require additional research. You may wish to fund research (sponsored research) to assist your efforts. The Department of Research Development and Administration (DRDA) negotiates these agreements with input from Tech Transfer personnel.

You will find that our agreements and their terms and conditions are similar to most university agreements. To assist you in understanding the principles behind the structure of most university technology licenses, refer to our Licensing Principles.

Although most of our agreements have simple, standardized components, we are always willing to work with you to provide specific modifications to suit your needs and our relationship.

Policies

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