STTR/SBIR Allocation of Rights

Most all federal SBIR and STTR require an Allocation of Rights (AoR) Agreement between corporate and university partners on the project at time of proposal, or at time of award.

The federal agencies recognize the need for all project partners on these types of programs to have a written agreement documenting intellectual property rights and ownership, along with associated publication and other issues between the corporate partner and the university, before any award is issued by the federal agency.

  • The AoR includes a definition of Background Intellectual Property that each party is bringing to the project, as well as rights related to the creation of any new Intellectual Property under the project ("Foreground" or "Project" IP), and associated contract terms related to licensing, commercialization, and management of jointly owned IP.
  • Faculty members submitting STTR and SBIR proposals should be aware of this AoR agreement requirement, and should work with their designated SRS pre-award personnel to identify the need and timeline for submission of this AoR in their STTR proposals or SBIR subcontracts.  

To help expedite the AoR process, faculty members should provide a brief description of any pre-existing Background IP that will be used on the project, and the contact information for the company to their preaward SRS presentative.

All PIs should be advised that RIT has modified the suggested federal agency templates regarding IP Allocation in order to comply with New York State law and RIT policies and licensing practices. RIT will only execute this RIT version of the AoR template (linked here) as it was reviewed and approved by all applicable offices within RIT.  RIT will not sign any company AoR document or agency template, and will only execute this approved AoR document.  There will rarely be any changes allowed to the RIT AoR agreement, and no edits will be reviewed by RIT if the request is submitted to RIT’s SRS office less than 7 days before the submission deadline.

If the company will not sign RIT’s AoR document, then RIT will be unable to proceed with the proposal.