Open Innovation Office

University & Industry Collaboration

Over the past 3 years, HP Labs’ Wayne Johnson has led a regional effort sponsored by the Northern California Bay Area Science and Innovation Consortium (BASIC) to address intellectual property (IP) issues hindering research collaborations between industry and universities. Through these efforts, the BASIC IP team has developed various models, practices, and frameworks to enable timely, successful contract negotiations. An example of this work is the Sponsored Research Interaction Process (SRIP) model, which is designed to help companies and universities navigate the complex landscape of IP contract negotiations. This model may be found at www.hpl.hp.com/research/ur/images/srip.pdf.

The BASIC IP team has contributed these models, practices, and frameworks to the national work being led by the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR).

HP has used these models and practices in negotiating agreements with various universities. In a recent negotiation, HP and UC Berkeley negotiated a DARPA subcontract, a task which had previously taken 18-24 months. Using the SRIP model, HP and UCB successfully completed the negotiation in 2 months! Overall, the participants in the negotiation liked this approach much more than the chaos of the past. Building on this success and the relationships that were established, HP was able to negotiate other agreements with UCB and UC Davis in less than 1 month!