As a state institution you may have some state legislation that
intends to prevent public institutions from commercial competition
with licensed business operations in the state. These laws are not
uniformly written and vary by state. Check with the University
General Counsel in your institution to confirm status of state
statute if any and your institutuion's response. Generally, as an
institution of higher education you are expected to protect the
researcher's right to investigate in order to support the public's
right to know. Limited delay of publication to provide for filing of
patent applications to protect rights is standard but the way you
phrased it, the restraint from researching in a given area is prior
censorship and undue restraint. Your University Counsel should guide
you here.