The new UMSL Innovations online platform automates certain nonexclusive licensing and can significantly reduce the transaction time for some licenses, helping achieve wider reach and distribution of the university’s intellectual property. (Graphic courtesy of Tamara Wilgers)

The University of Missouri–St. Louis has launched a new online platform that will make it simple for anyone to quickly and easily obtain a nonexclusive license of select intellectual property from the university.

Managed by the Office of IP Management and Commercialization under its director, Tamara Wilgers, the UMSL Innovations online marketplace will help advance the office’s central mission to get UMSL ideas out into the world and achieve a wider reach and distribution of the university’s IP.

The platform functionality is made possible by E-Lucid, which was itself based on a university technology spun out from the University College London. The tool automates the non-exclusive copyright licensing processes, providing the quickest and most efficient transactions possible. It also easily manages agreements that have complex approval processes, allows for online payments, and provides easy digital product downloads.

“The UMSL Innovations platform automates certain nonexclusive licensing and can reduce the transaction time for some licenses from months to minutes,” Wilgers said. “This efficiency will help increase accessibility of UMSL works and allow more staff time to be spent on other, more complex agreements. Our goal is to maximize both the social and economic benefits of UMSL’s research outputs and scholarly works.”

She noted that licensing is not only valuable in helping more people access UMSL IP, but it also creates the potential for financial return and can assist faculty members in managing how others modify and use their copyrighted materials.

“Our faculty members make significant contributions to our collective knowledge through their research and scholarship, and we’re excited to be launching this site to help more people benefit from their work,” said Chris Spilling, UMSL’s vice chancellor for research and economic and community development.

While not all of UMSL’s IP licenses can be facilitated through this platform, UMSL Innovations can help transfer materials developed by faculty, staff and student employees. Such materials might include online curricula, software, training videos – from mental healthcare to computer software – program development guidebooks, digital images such as those in the St. Louis Mercantile Library’s vast collection, research materials, and more.

For example, the “We Came as Refugees: An American Story” play script, puppet show performance video, study guides customized for middle and high school students and adults, and learning surveys compile the current Featured Product on the UMSL Innovations site. This bundle of research-based educational tools, developed by Founders Professor Uma Segal from the School of Social Work and Associate Professor Felia Davenport from the Department of Communication and Media, are meant to help dispel misperceptions about refugees in the U.S. and could be valuable resources both for classroom teachers and community organizations.

On top of making the licensing process more efficient, this new platform provides an organized online storefront for UMSL assets, increasing the visibility of the works and “getting them the national, even global, attention they deserve,” Wilgers said.

Along with copyrighted works, the site will also feature patented technologies. Parties interested in collaborating on those can contact the university through UMSL Innovations for more information. One such listing is for a passive immunization treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease invented by Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor Michael Nichols. The treatment uses a monoclonal antibody that works against a protein that is the primary trigger for the disease’s onset. Nichols is seeking a commercial collaborator to further develop and bring the technology to market, and the site could help facilitate that by getting the word out to potential partners.

To learn more, visit license.umsl.edu to see the UMSL intellectual property and assets available on the platform and check back as the site is populated with new materials. UMSL employees with creative works, materials, or research discoveries with potential interest to outside companies or organizations should contact the UMSL Office of IP Management and Commercialization (wilgerst@umsl.edu or 314-516-6884). The UMSL IP office is a unit of the Office of Research and Economic and Community Development.