Intellectual Property Rights

Collaborative Research and Development Projects

Principles
In order to facilitate the use of its technology Solvias commits to a flexible and pragmatic approach to Intellectual Property (IP) Management. Before entering a collaborative R&D program the customer and Solvias will jointly define and agree on a definition for a ‘Field‘ usually in terms of a molecular structure outlining the scope of the Agreement and forthcoming project. IP then broadly falls into 3 categories:
‘Customer IP’. This is the intellectual property that the customer has developed independently in relation to their target prior to the signature of the Agreement.
‘Solvias IP’ . This is the intellectual property that Solvias has developed prior to the signature of the Agreement or independently of it. It would typically cover catalysts that are proprietary to Solvias and also includes third party intellectual property that has been in-licensed by Solvias.
‘Developed IP’. This is based on the results of the collaborative research program.
Solvias will seek to identify patentable subject matter from scientific results on behalf of the customer and depending on his requirements, will cooperate in the drafting, filing, prosecution and maintenance of patent applications based on ‘Developed IP’.

Ownership and use of IP-Rights

1.	The customer retains ownership of all ‘Customer IP’ at all times and Solvias retains ownership of all ‘Solvias IP’ at all times.
2.	The customer shall own the ‘Developed IP’ for the ‘Field’. Thus, if as a result of the collaborative research program a process is found to be of value to the customer but this process does not use any ‘Solvias IP’, the customer is free to use that process for the ‘Field’ with no further costs or obligations to Solvias.
3.	Solvias is always free to use the ‘Developed IP’ outside of the customers' ‘Field’. This arrangement enables us to justify our methodology investment.

Licensing of Solvias IP
If, as a result of the program, a process is found to be of value to the customer and this process needs ‘Solvias IP’ for its operation, the customer will require a separate license or sub-license to use that part of the ‘Solvias IP’ to operate the ‘Developed IP’ for the ‘Field’. Such license or sub-license for commercial use would generally be negotiated once ‘Developed IP’ and specific customer requirements are identified.

Ligands and Catalysts: Solvias’ customer-friendly strategy
In the specific use of catalysis technology, unattractive royalty models of the technology-owner often present hurdles for the economic and ecological production of chemical and pharmaceutical products.
As one of the leading suppliers of chiral ligands for enantioselective catalysis Solvias offers a particularly customer-friendly IP compensation model.
All ligands and catalysts of Solvias include the IP compensation for technology in the contractually agreed kilo-price, regardless of performance and added value of the catalyst system in the respective transformation.