The Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) is responsible for working with campus inventors to facilitate transfer of technologies created at UC Berkeley into the commercial sector for public use. The scope of OTL activities include:
- Evaluating commercial use of new technologies disclosed to OTL;
- Determining patentability;
- Filing for patents;
- Registering copyrights (software);
- Marketing and licensing patents, tangible material, and software;
- Negotiating and executing license agreements; and
- Receiving and distributing royalties and other income to inventors, software authors and UC Berkeley.
Administrative officials are responsible for ensuring that all potentially patentable inventions are disclosed to OTL as soon as possible after the conception of the idea. Potentially patentable inventions include any new or useful process, device or apparatus, article of manufacture, composition of matter (including chemical compounds, microorganisms, and the like), asexually propagated plant, or related improvement to any of the foregoing, or a new use for a known material or device.
An explanation of the technology licensing process, UC licensing policies, and contact information can be found on the OTL web site.
University licensing guidelines are available from the Office of the President. UC Equity Policy discusses the acceptance of equity in a company as partial consideration for receiving a license and establishes parameters for entering into such arrangements. Guidelines on University-Industry Relations discusses the complexity of relations between the University of California and private industry, due to the complementary but differing goals of the University and private industry.