Licensing Technology

Licensing technology from the University of Arkansas can be very easy if you know what you want and you also understand the University’s position on various licensing aspects. We endeavor to make your license easy for you to understand and to use.

You will notice the box to the right contains links to our standard licenses. Because the University does not typically file patents on software, the software license is different. If you have questions about any of the licenses, you may contact our office so we can assist you.

It is important to know that we are flexible with regard to license terms and everything is open to negotiation, although we do have specific requirements that we must consider in each license.

If you wish to license the patent rights to an invention or the copyright to some software, you will find helpful information by clicking on one of the links in the box to the right. We have two versions of the license for patent rights – one for existing companies, and another for start-up (or new companies). Because the situation for each of these companies is different, we have slightly different terms for each case.

The patent right licenses are organized such that the “term sheet” portion of the license is in the first four or five pages. On those pages, you will see where we have in some cases included actual figures and in others where we have inserted italicized text to explain what information might be included. In the column on the left side of the term page, you will see next to each term a number or numbers, which refer to sections in the “boilerplate” (the appendix) that have specific reference to those terms.

One thing to keep in mind is that patents are costly and the University will in every case require repayment of those patent costs as a part of the license terms. In some cases, we will include specific terms related to the patent costs or other special conditions (found within the section that immediately follows the term sheet).

Royalty rates are an important aspect of all licenses. Please see the chart below for standard royalty rates related to specific categories of intellectual property.