Program agenda:
- Fostering co-creation: It’s all about communication:
- Understanding each party’s goals, concerns, and constraints.
- Communicate expectations early, with the deal breakers first
- Handling conflicts when they arise:
- When terms are perceived as “unreasonable” – making your case
- When Sweetheart deals get sticky
- Maintaining Inventor relationships when:
- abandoning IP or filing on un-licenseable IP
- no deals or bad deals
- navigating negotiations with faculty start-up founders
- Navigating Inter-Institutional negotiations:
- When revenue-sharing expectations are not aligned
- Differing philosophies on important licensing terms
- Tactics for achieving co-creation, de-escalation and prevention:
- Tactics that will be covered:
- Unity within team
- Unity beyond the team
- When faced with an impasse, offer a bridge
- Develop and leverage expertise to bolster trust in negotiations
- Data driven decision making
- Involve stakeholders early and often
- Break negotiations into steps and establish expectations and deliverables at each step.
- Additional considerations for urgent licensing situations (eg. COVID tech)
Sometimes, license negotiations can veer in an unintended direction. There are several common scenarios that can result in a deadlock, or even bring bad blood to the table. Disagreements on valuations, whether to license to an inventor start-up or an existing company, rights to improvements, royalty rates, milestones, and choices regarding start-up leadership are all areas that can quickly derail a deal – and sour relationships with faculty or corporate licensees.
When discussions break down, how can you course correct and get the parties back to the table and talking productively — and how can you repair fractured relationships, or prevent them from cracking in the first place?
We’ve partnered with an expert team from the University of Texas at Austin to bring you this detailed program where we will discuss common scenarios that can bring negotiations to a screeching halt, proven tactics used to ‘mend fences’ to get the conversations moving again, and, most importantly, ways to prevent misunderstandings from the very start of negotiations.
The University of Texas at Austin’s primary approach is to foster a process of co-creation, which involves active listening, transparent communication, and collaborative development of goals and mutually satisfactory solutions to achieve those objectives for all parties. Our team of presenters will provide a deep dive into their approach.
