ExFAB Intellectual Property Policy

• Background:  The NSF ExFAB BioFoundry has been established to develop new workflows, protocols and techniques to enable the study of extreme and exceptional microbes. The ExFAB intellectual property policy has been developed to assure ExFAB has access to the new workflows, protocols and techniques developed through its facilities that will drive our understanding of these microbes, while preserving the ability for key discoveries to be translated into products and services that will benefit us all.

• IP Ownership:  The universities that house ExFAB facilities will not assert ownership over any intellectual property invented, developed or created by an external user based solely on the use of the ExFAB facility or its technical personnel. The universities will assert ownership only in the event that a university employee is an inventor or co-inventor as defined under U.S. patent law.

• Licenses to ExFAB:  

  • Equipment Improvements and new protocols/workflows. Users will grant ExFAB a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use in its facilities (a) any new use, modification or improvement of equipment housed in ExFAB’s facilities or (b) any new protocol or workflow developed through the use of ExFAB’s facilities; except in the case of a Proprietary Research project (defined below).

  • Users will grant to each university housing an ExFAB facility a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use any intellectual property created during the use of ExFAB facilities for research and educational purposes only, except in the case of a Proprietary Research project (defined below) or to the extent they are legally prohibited from providing such a license.

• Samples:  Materials (samples) sent to ExFAB facilities will be managed through the host university’s material transfer agreement process. Except in the case of Proprietary Research, ExFAB may request a user to deposit a sample of the material at ExFAB, together with any sequencing, phenotyping, metabolomic, or other data on the material generated through the use of the ExFAB facility. ExFAB may use the materials and associated data for research and educational purposes. ExFAB will keep deposited materials for up to one (1) year, after which the user may either deposit the material in a third-party depository that allows access for research and educational use or directly provide samples of the materials to researchers upon request. ExFAB will embargo access to the samples and/or any related data for up to two (2) years or its earliest publication upon the written request of the user.

• Proprietary Research:  Proprietary research means any research where a user pays the full applicable user fee to access the ExFAB facilities.  Research that accesses the ExFAB facility under an approved user proposal or that is subject to a User Grant is not considered proprietary research.