Greetings!  I would be interested in hearing from anyone who
currently has funding with the US-Israel Binational Science
Foundation.  In looking at the standard BSF contract and the BSF
administrative requirements, I'm wondering how other institutions
worked around the IP provisions.

The administrative highlights of the BSF guidelines on IP indicate
that the IP rights in the DRAFT contract have been approved by both
governments and are not open to exception.  If a Grantee discloses an
invention and elects to file a patent, the BSF is entitled to 5% of
the royalties (after payment of patent and maintenance costs).  Do
you permit royalty sharing on a regular basis, and does it come off
the top or out of a particular piece of the standard institutional
split?  (At NDSU, our standard is 30% to the inventors, 40% to the
generating Department, 30% to the Research Foundation).

If a Grantee does not elect to file, or does not file in a timely
manner, the BSF is entitled to all rights, and if the Grantee only
files in certain countries, the BSF is entitled to all rights in the
remaining countries.  Do you permit such assignment of rights?  At
NDSU, our policy requires us to return to inventors any inventions
that the Research Foundation decides not to protect, subject to
retention by the Research Foundation of up to 30% of the
revenues.  In this instance, I suppose the inventor could agree to
assign rights to BSF.

The BSF can also require the Grantee or an exclusive licensee to
grant a non-exclusive or exclusive license to a responsible applicant
within the US or Israel on reasonable terms, if the Grantee or
exclusive licensee "has not taken or is not expected to take
effective steps to achieve practical application of the invention in
the US or Israel."

Other administrative highlights:
- limit recovery of F&A to 15%
- do not permit recovery of any PI salary but do require the % of
effort to be included
- limit the amount that can be requested to $230,000 (including F&A)
- indicate that grants rarely exceed $50,000/year.

I have heard that it is very difficult to even get funding from the
BSF.  I'm curious how many out there do have such funding.

Thanks for any insight!!

Val Kettner
Associate Vice President
Sponsored Programs Administration
North Dakota State University
xxxxxx@ndsu.edu

======================================================================
 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists")
======================================================================