Legal and strategic stakes of partnerships
Increasingly, innovative teams at a company or laboratory need to collaborate with one or more external actors.
These partnerships call for a precise definition of each party’s expectations and of the objectives they are working toward together, as well as the implementation of clear rules for recognizing each party’s contributions, for a structured framework during the collaboration period and for managing rights to the innovations, creations and know-how resulting from the partnership.
A wide variety of situations are possible, ranging from the formalization of a project in the framework of a competitive cluster to European programs such as the FP7 programs, not to mention the common situations in which companies work together with research centers, engineering schools or design schools, or with freelance creators and designers, etc.
Each collaboration, and each related contract, must be set up so as to properly organize the whole and to make the most of the positive effects of the collaboration while protecting the interests of each party. Each case is different, and suitable governance should be proposed: conventional cooperations; open innovation; “creative commons” collaborations, etc.
The ten keys to a successful collaboration
Our consultants apply a holistic methodology, reviewing the 10 keys to a successful collaboration:
Preparing and organizing negotiations
- Prior audit of the planned collaboration – setting up confidentiality and negotiation agreements
Defining the contract’s domain
- Audit of objectives
- Scope of the domain
- Products of the contract
Distribution of tasks
- Logistics and means of execution
- Governance of the collaboration
- Access to the results
Managing the partners’ rights
- Modalities for appropriating and exploiting contributions (“background”) and rights under the contract (“foreground”)
- Confidentiality and competition
- Termination (whether early or not)
Training and services proposed by the VIDON Group
The ViDON Group helps its customers in all their partnership formalities, from preparation and negotiation to the construction, drafting or revision of contracts, as well as monitoring and exercising rights resulting from contracts and agreements.
In this type of service, our consultants can provide all the diversity of their experience and cultures brought together in our teams, combining legal, technical and entrepreneurial backgrounds.
Soazig Themoin and Patrice Vidon host recurring training sessions on this type of contract as part of the IEEPI (Institut Européen Entreprises et Propriété Industrielle).