Licensing

We are committed to being the most startup-friendly technology commercialization office in the country. Our goal is to minimize the friction for entrepreneurs to launch and grow startups resulting from U-M research activity. We offer a variety of frameworks that outline our approach to startup licensing and accommodate your startup’s unique situation.

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Digital Discovery

The Digital Discovery Process  is a unique service built to help faculty and staff move early stage software based ideas from unstructured brainstorms, fragments and broad based inspiration into well formed and developed concepts. This powerful service helps move your ideas from a rough sketch to an articulate vision that can be clearly presented, supported and actioned. An agile team of software industry professionals and external experts with business, technical, design and compliance experience walk you through a comprehensive process to structure your initial idea.

Mobile Publishing

Innovation Partnerships is the University of Michigan’s gateway for publishing mobile apps to U-M’s official accounts on the App Store and Google Play Store. We are responsible for publishing apps developed or sponsored by U-M faculty, staff and graduate students. The types of apps we publish are wide-ranging—from campus life apps geared towards students, to health and educational apps for the public, to apps integral to clinical research studies. Innovation Partnerships steps you through the submission requirements, providing guidance and assistance throughout the publishing process.

Data is a valuable asset for researchers and U-M. At its fullest potential, researchers can use data to promote research and maximize societal impact as well as provide funding for continued research. Moreover, U-M is committed to making data available in order to enable the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

We can work with you to maximize the impact of your data through:

• matching datasets with industry partners in order to help get data out of the lab and into the hands of change makers and innovators
• helping to navigate the laws governing the sharing of data and any obligations owed to funders or other third parties

Fellows work part-time to assist Innovation Partnerships licensing specialists to assess the technical and market potential of new U-M inventions.

Typical projects include:

• Scientific, market, prior art, and patent research and analysis
• Assessing commercial viability of new inventions
• Categorizing inventions into application specific or industry segments
• Technology marketing abstract composition
• Identifying potential licensees or investors