Re: Alcatel Linda Campbell 19 Jul 2000 11:06 EST

I recently had a similar experience with a major company here.  Not only did they want to own everything included in the contract, they also wanted us to obtain licenses for them for related work funded by other sponsors (at our expense, of course) and had included publication restrictions.

When I tried to explain that there was no way that we, or any other university of which I was aware, could accept this language, I was told that the contract was drafted specifically for universities and that "everyone was signing it."  Rather than begin a long argument, I simply told the contract officer that perhaps I had overlooked or misinterpreted something.  If she would give me the name and phone number of a Research Administrator who had accepted this language,  I'd be glad to call him/her to see what I had missed.

There was a long pause and when the conversation began again, it was on a different topic.

In a conversation several weeks later, the same contracting official admitted  that they were having difficulties with this language - no universities would accept it.   Either I was the first recipient of this newly revised contract, or they thought that since we are a smaller insitution we'd be so delighted to receive the money that we wouldn't read/understand the terms and conditions.

Linda

Linda Campbell
Director of Sponsored Projects
Santa Clara University
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA  95053-0250
phone: 408-554-4408
fax: 408-554-2389
email: xxxxxx@scu.edu

>>> xxxxxx@CALPOLY.EDU 07/18/00 04:33PM >>>
We have received an agreement from Alcatel USA Sourcing, L. P. that
includes clauses giving them all rights, title and interest in the
project, documentation and any inventions (patentable or unpatentable),
copyrights,...

The company will not budge on this point and says that other
Universities (they specifically mentioned "Texas") have accepted their
language.  I would greatly appreciated hearing from any of you who have
interacted with this company specifically on the ownership issue.

Thanks!

Sharon Kuhlenschmidt
Grants Development Analyst
Building 38 Room 152
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
(805) 756-5963
fax:  805/ 756-5466
e-mail:   xxxxxx@calpoly.edu

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