Ohio State Unveils Licensing Changes to Enhance Entrepreneurial Ecosystems
The Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge (ERIK) is committed to making engaging with Ohio State’s innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems as transparent and easy as possible. As part of that ongoing work, ERIK’s Innovation and Commercialization team is streamlining its software startup license terms to simplify and accelerate the transfer of Ohio State software innovations into new companies.
The new software startup license terms for software licenses to VC-track software startups remove traditional royalties and upfront and ongoing license fees and include only a 1% or 4% equity interest determined by the circumstances of the software’s creation. Ohio State’s standard equity arrangement is to receive common stock with mutually agreed upon anti-dilution protections and “participation rights” allowing future capital investment in the startup.
Inventions covered by patents or code developed through significant internal investment will continue to be available for licensing to startups on customized terms.
| Licensing Terms | Software developed without direct support of Ohio State funds/facilities, but related to a researcher’s work at Ohio State | Software that was substantially developed at Ohio State (e.g. in an Ohio State lab or with funds administered by Ohio State) |
Patent rights covering invention; Significant internal investment in code development |
| Upfront fee | None | None | None |
| Running Royaly | None | None | to be discussed |
| Annual Fee | None | None | None |
| Equity | 1% | 4% | to be discussed |
These changes are designed to encourage faculty entrepreneurship and further development of the Ohio State innovation ecosystem and are aligned with software commercialization activities supported by Ohio State’s Center for Software Innovation.
If you have questions, please reach out to ERIK’s Innovation and Commercialization team at innovation@osu.edu