Abstract
As a growing number of companies reject intellectual property (IP) monopoly-based business models to embrace libre product development of free and open source hardware and software, there is an urgent need to refurbish the instruments of university-corporate research partnerships. These partnerships generally use a proprietary standard research agreement (PSRA), which for historical reasons contains significant IP monopoly language and restrictions for both the company and the university. Such standard research agreements thus create an artificial barrier to innovation as both companies using a libre model and universities they wish to collaborate with must invest significantly to restructure the contracts. To solve this problem, this article provides a new Sponsored Libre Research Agreement (SLRA). The differences between the agreements are detailed. The advantages of using an SLRA are provided for any type of company and include: (1) minimizing research investments on reporting requirements; (2) reducing delays related to confidentiality and publication embargos; and (3) reducing both transaction and legal costs as well as research time losses associated with IP. Moving to libre agreements both speeds up and reduces costs for setting up collaborative research. Under the SLRA, university researchers can spend more time innovating for the same investment.
Highlights
The three primary aspects of proprietary standard research agreement (PSRA) that limit innovation are: (1) oppressive default reporting requirements; (2) delays related to confidentiality and publication embargos; and (3) restrictive intellectual property (IP) rules and licenses
This paper provided a new Sponsored Libre Research Agreement or SLRA, which overcomes many of the deficiencies of the standard proprietary research agreements between universities and companies that sponsor research
The differences between the agreements were detailed and it was concluded that the SLRA provides advantages for both fully libre companies as well as traditional companies
Summary
Intellectual monopoly-based business models [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8], which rely on patents [9,10] and their concomitant challenges [8,11,12,13], are common across both hardware and software industries. GNU/Linux [27], and major Internet-based corporations use and develop FOSS including: Amazon, including: Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Twitter and Facebook. FOSS/FOSH-based technical development provides a so that anyone can study, modify, manufacture, distribute, and sell the design or pieces of hardware competitive advantage as innovation can include more participants than proprietary innovation firms [14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21], is less encumbered bytechnical. The scientific community publishing, academic suchasasitHardwareX (publishing libre hardware designs from has been quick new to adopt librejournals hardware reduces costs by 90–99%, while improving control potentiostat/galvanostats [44] to a microsyringe autosamplers [45]) and the Journal of Open Hardware, and allowing customizable features [41,42,43]. The differences between the PSRA and SLRA are detailed and the advantages are discussed for using the SLRA are provided for both a fully libre company, as well as traditional companies
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