Click-thru licensing

EI’s Click-thru Licensing System is an online service that makes it quick and easy for commercial organisations to purchase non-exclusive licences to University of Edinburgh intellectual property.

About click-thru

The click-thru licensing system can be used to make a range of innovative opportunities available on a commercial basis.

As well as outputs from core research, this includes tools and materials that you have created to support your own or your colleagues’ activities, which can also be of use to others and a valuable commodity.

Visitors to the click-thru licensing system can view information on available intellectual property opportunities together with their associated terms and conditions.

If a prospective licensee wishes to license an opportunity on the click-thru licensing system, they can register and simply 'click' to follow four simple steps through the automated licensing process.

The system also includes an online payment option and a download facility for technologies available in electronic format, such as software and other copyrighted materials.

All opportunities are made available non-exclusively, meaning they can be acquired by more than one purchaser.

What can go on Click-thru?

Some examples of technologies that can be made available through EI’s click-thru licensing system include:

  • Patented technologies
  • Software / IP cores
  • Information databases
  • Proprietary research materials
  • Antibodies
  • Animal models
  • Cell lines
  • Proteins
  • DNA Plasmids
  • Chemical libraries, etc.
  • Copyright materials (such as Patient Reported Outcome Questionnaires)

This list is not intended to be exhaustive and you may have created other valuable commodities through your work not listed above.

 
Biological research materials

Materials generated by researchers within the University’s laboratories in the course of their research are also likely to be of interest to both academic and commercial researchers working in the same field.

EI can support commercialisation in this area and has an excellent network of life science companies who are keen to acquire licences to innovative biological research materials.

The advantages of licensing (for example) antibodies to a catalogue house means that they will supply them to other researchers lifting the burden off you. And, because these licences are non-exclusive, you still retain the right to supply directly to collaborators at your discretion.

 
Software

Have you developed computer software, a database or even a simple program in the course of your work, to improve efficiency or to solve a specific problem? If so, what is valuable to you may well be valuable to others and could generate income or other benefits for you and your School/research centre.

An online payment option and download facility make EI’s click-thru licensing system an effective route to make such software tools available on a commercial basis.

 

Making your opportunity available via EI’s Click-thru Licensing System

The first step to making your opportunity available via EI’s click-thru licensing system is to contact your School’s EI Business Development Executive who will discuss the commercialisation options. If a click-thru licensing strategy is appropriate, EI’s team will work with you to establish the ‘click-thru’ offering, including putting in place marketing materials and appropriate legal terms. Financial transactions are all handled by EI with revenues distributed as per the University’s Inventor Incentive Scheme.