In most countries, universities can claim the intellectual property (IP) rights on technologies developed in their laboratories.
In the United States, the Bayh–Dole Act permits universities to pursue ownership of inventions made by researchers at their institutions using funding from the federal government, where previously federal research funding contracts and grants obligated inventors (wherever they worked) to assign the resulting IP to the government.
University spin-offs typically go through a number of critical steps to develop the initial invention into a successful business venture.
[7] Moreover, the antagonism between academic research and technology commercialization by way of spin-offs is likely to create fairness issues, for example regarding the distribution of royalties or equity.
This antagonism can be managed by installing transparent procedures for the spin-off formation process that enhance fair treatment of all participants.