For Researchers

Big Tech Research Awards

Several big tech companies advertise “gift” funding or “prize” awards to support university research. However, researchers and university development and sponsored projects offices should proceed with caution because the terms and conditions (T&Cs) of these “gifts” and “prizes” may actually qualify the funds as contracts with problematic terms for UC, and NOT as gifts. This page explains the challenges, requirements for UC to accept research support from big tech companies, and what you can do to ensure a more straightforward path to success.

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I&E Activities Reports for Faculty

IPIRA generates reports for UC Berkeley faculty, by request, of innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) accomplishments tracked by IPIRA's peer divisions, the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) and the Industry Alliances Office (IAO).

A report will be emailed to you, with counts of the following I&E activities recorded between July 1, 2019, and June 30, 2024.

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Request CDA

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Annual Reports

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Guides to Outside Consulting

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Who Should Disclose Inventions

How do you know if you should disclose an invention to the Berkeley Office of Technology Licensing (OTL)?

Submit an invention disclosure if any of the following is true. The innovation was created:

by a UC Berkeley employee as part of their scope of employment, or using UC Berkeley research facilities, or using funds administered through UC Berkeley

An invention that meets any of those criteria, and therefore could potentially be owned by the university, must be disclosed to OTL under the UC employee agreement. This ensures the...

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Research Data, Software, and Materials Resources and Policies

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Evaluation of Inventions

You've submitted an invention disclosure to the UC Berkeley Office of Technology Licensing (OTL). What happens next?

How does OTL Assess Invention Disclosures?

Licensing Officers at Berkeley IPIRA OTL examine each invention disclosure to review: the novelty of the invention; protectability and marketability of potential products or services; relationship to related intellectual property; size and growth potential of the relevant market; amount of time and money required for further development; outside parties pre-existing rights associated with the intellectual property (IP); and...

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Software Disclosures

UC Berkeley Office of Technology Licensing assists inventors and authors in licensing software under a variety of distribution strategies. In addition to licensing software code for commercial development and distribution, OTL licenses research code for non-commercial and/or academic purposes and assists authors in offering software via open source licenses.