Yale University: Yale expands IP license income-sharing practices

Yale University today announced changes to its patent royalty sharing practices to further encourage the translation of faculty research into products and services that benefit society.

Effective Oct. 1, the university will distribute 100% of net income generated from new technologies to the Yale researchers and academic units responsible for the inventions, Provost Scott Strobel and Vice Provost for Research Michael C. Crair said in a message to faculty.

Inventors will receive a greater percentage of the income, and funds will be distributed in fixed percentages directly to the laboratory, department, and school where the invention originated.

To date, inventors of patentable university intellectual property (IP) have received a share of licensing income, and the remainder has been retained by the university to fund its technology transfer operations and other general research support.

“At Yale, we are always pursuing ways to better support our researchers and help amplify their impact,” Strobel and Crair wrote in their message. “Your insights and groundbreaking work are essential to our mission of improving the world.”

At the highest tier — licenses generating at least $200,000 of income — Yale inventors will receive 30% of the income share, up from 27%, and the inventor’s lab and department will receive 15% each, new additions to university practices. The remaining 40% will be distributed to the inventor’s school.

“Faculty entrepreneurs are the heartbeat of our innovation ecosystem here at Yale, and this change marks an important milestone in our continued development of an entrepreneurial culture on campus,” Strobel and Crair wrote. “We are grateful for your partnership and the work of the Yale Ventures team in facilitating the transfer of new inventions to market and for supporting a robust, wide-ranging pipeline of Yale discoveries that will benefit society.”

The changes will be applied to future income resulting from inventions disclosed to Yale Ventures beginning Oct. 1. The prior patent royalty sharing practice will continue to be applied to inventions disclosed before this date. Additional details can be found on the Yale Ventures website in the “Patent Policy” section.

Launched in April, Yale Ventures supports and expands innovation and entrepreneurship across the university and throughout the greater New Haven region. Its work includes aiding the translation of university research into products, services, and social ventures.

“We are very grateful for the support from President Peter Salovey and Provost Strobel that makes this allocation change possible,” said Josh Geballe, senior associate provost for entrepreneurship & innovation and Yale Ventures’ managing director. “At Yale Ventures we are scaling up programs, streamlining processes, and adding staff to provide support to our hard-working faculty and research staff eager to see their inventions have real-world impact. We hope these changes result in more Yale scholarship positively impacting the big challenges we face, from preventing and curing disease, to addressing the climate crisis, to leading the quantum computing era, to other improvements to global prosperity and quality of life.”