The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has released "Sakura Tool," which is a model for joint research contracts between universities and companies, on its website.The 11 types of models according to the form of the contract describe the points to be noted when making a contract, and even small and medium-sized enterprises and local universities with insufficient organizational structure can conclude R & D contracts.
According to the Ministry of Education, the 11 models of Sakura Tool come with contracts and explanations in Japanese and English, and the intellectual property created by the joint research belongs to the university or company, or the side to which the intellectual property does not belong. The rights are divided according to the type, such as exclusive use option or transfer option.Each contract model can be downloaded from the homepage.
Industry-academia joint research has increased in Japan due to the enforcement of the Technology Transfer Law of universities and the promotion of industry-academia collaboration activities.However, there are conspicuous cases where the form example of the joint research contract presented by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology is used, and the intellectual property of the research is used as a joint application or joint patent for the time being.It is said that the uncertain situation will continue as to how far commercialization has progressed.
In Europe and the United States, the determination of intellectual property attribution in industry-academia research has become a problem, and in the United Kingdom, there is a movement to specifically negotiate the attribution of intellectual property such as the Lambert toolkit at the contract conclusion stage.
Sakura Tool was created by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to overcome this situation and enable industry-academia collaboration with small and medium-sized universities and local universities.
