Research & IP Agreements

Material Transfer Agreements

MTA is a contract made between KFUPM and an organization for exchange of physical materials for research (including data and software). MTA include terms on how the material can be used including any technical restrictions, publications from research work, ownership of Intellectual Property (IP) generated from research completed using the material. MTA is made especially when there are no other agreements covering the research work with the other organization. So, if you either have requested proprietary materials from an organization or sending materials to an organization for research work, ITT can facilitate negotiating the draft after discussing the planned work with the material.

Research Agreements

If you are discussing a collaborative research project with a university or company (involving researchers from both sides), ITT is only authority at KFUPM to review and finalize the IP terms in such agreement. The IP terms includes ownership of IP generated from research, who and how the IPs will be managed including patent prosecution and licensing to a third party. The collaboration may involve financial contribution and/or in-kind contribution by the other party (e.g. use of their labs, materials, data, equipment etc.).

Visitor Scientist Agreement

If you as a faculty or researcher are visiting a company or university for research work and using their facilities and resources, you may be asked by the host organization to sign a Visiting Scientist/Researcher IP agreement. As per KFUPM’s IP Policy, KFUPM employees need to disclose inventions to ITT, including the IP resulting from such visit. To avoid any conflict with the IP policy, you are requested to kindly share the draft of such agreement with ITT before signing it.