Open Bench IP

Discovery guide

Questions for Emory's Head of Entrepreneurship

The starred questions below are the ones to actually ask in the room — a peer-level conversation, not an interrogation. The full document underneath is the private reference: everything else is there as a follow-up if the conversation opens the door to it.

The PDF leaves blank lines under each question for handwritten notes.

Core questions for the live conversation

12 questions, pulled from across the full guide. Ask these first.

  1. 1

    Walk me through what actually happens, step by step, from the day a faculty member discloses an invention to the day a license or founder agreement is signed.

    1. Current state of IP policy

  2. 2

    What is the median time that process takes today, not the target on paper?

    1. Current state of IP policy

  3. 3

    What does Emory typically take in a spinout deal — equity, royalty, both, and in what range?

    2. Ownership, equity, and licensing terms

  4. 4

    How much room does a faculty founder actually have to negotiate terms, versus a fixed template they can take or leave?

    2. Ownership, equity, and licensing terms

  5. 5

    When faculty work with outside companies or federally funded collaborations, how are background IP, newly created IP, and improvements defined before the work begins?

    2. Ownership, equity, and licensing terms

  6. 6

    What Emory terms, if any, tend to become sticking points when an outside investor diligences a faculty spinout?

    2. Ownership, equity, and licensing terms

  7. 7

    Does founding a company count toward tenure and promotion review, and is there a workable dual-role path for staying on faculty while running it?

    3. Faculty incentives and career impact

  8. 8

    What is the biggest reason you see faculty decide not to pursue commercialization, even when they believe in the idea?

    3. Faculty incentives and career impact

  9. 9

    What peer institutions do you think do this exceptionally well?

    6. Resources, ecosystem, and support

  10. 10

    What would it take for staying on faculty while building a company to feel like the easy path, rather than the exception?

    7. An investment fund and a venture home

  11. 11

    If you could change one thing about the system, what would it be?

    8. Vision and openness to change

  12. 12

    Who else should be in this conversation?

    8. Vision and openness to change

Full discovery guide — follow-ups if useful

1. Current state of IP policy

  1. 1Walk me through what actually happens, step by step, from the day a faculty member discloses an invention to the day a license or founder agreement is signed.
  2. 2What is the median time that process takes today, not the target on paper?
  3. 3Where in that process do most disclosures stall or get abandoned?
  4. 4How many invention disclosures does the medical school receive in a typical year, and how many become a license, spinout, or startup?
  5. 5Is there a standard, published IP policy faculty can read before they disclose, or is it negotiated case by case?

2. Ownership, equity, and licensing terms

  1. 1What does Emory typically take in a spinout deal — equity, royalty, both, and in what range?
  2. 2Are terms fairly standard across departments, or does the medical school negotiate differently than engineering or business?
  3. 3Is there a fast-track or express license option for lower-stakes inventions, or does everything go through full committee review?
  4. 4How much room does a faculty founder actually have to negotiate terms, versus a fixed template they can take or leave?
  5. 5What happens to IP if a company fails — does it revert to the university, the founder, or stay with investors?
  6. 6When faculty work with outside companies or federally funded collaborations, how are background IP, newly created IP, and improvements defined before the work begins?
  7. 7What Emory terms, if any, tend to become sticking points when an outside investor diligences a faculty spinout?

3. Faculty incentives and career impact

  1. 1Does founding a company count toward tenure and promotion review, and is there a workable dual-role path for staying on faculty while running it?
  2. 2Does founding or advising a company count toward tenure and promotion review, and if so, how is it weighed against publications and grants?
  3. 3Is there a formal reduced-load, sabbatical, or dual-role policy for faculty who want to run a company while staying on faculty?
  4. 4What non-dilutive funding exists internally to get a proof-of-concept to the point where outside investors will take a meeting?
  5. 5How long does conflict-of-interest review typically take once a faculty member wants to found or advise a company tied to their research?
  6. 6What is the biggest reason you see faculty decide not to pursue commercialization, even when they believe in the idea?

4. Physician-scientists and clinical IP specifically

  1. 1Are there IP or conflict-of-interest rules specific to clinician-founders that differ from basic science faculty?
  2. 2How does clinical trial data, patient data, or device development get handled differently in terms of IP ownership?
  3. 3How do you balance a physician’s clinical duties with the time demands of founding a company?
  4. 4Where have you seen promising faculty ventures run into enough friction that the founder considered building elsewhere?

5. Students, trainees, and non-faculty inventors

  1. 1How does IP ownership change when a grad student, postdoc, or resident is a co-inventor rather than the faculty member themselves?
  2. 2Are trainees included in equity or royalty splits, and is that policy written down or handled case by case?
  3. 3What support exists for a trainee who wants to found a company around their own research after they leave the lab?

6. Resources, ecosystem, and support

  1. 1What internal resources exist today — incubator space, gap funding, mentorship, legal support — for a faculty member who wants to start a company?
  2. 2How connected is the medical school’s entrepreneurship office to Atlanta’s broader startup and investor ecosystem?
  3. 3Where do most Emory Med spinouts end up raising their first outside capital from?
  4. 4What peer institutions do you think do this exceptionally well?

7. An investment fund and a venture home

  1. 1Does Emory or the medical school have anything like an evergreen fund that takes equity in faculty spinouts, separate from licensing terms?
  2. 2If not, who internally would decide whether to build one, and what would they need to see to consider it?
  3. 3Is there physical space today — an incubator, studio, or shared office — where a faculty founder’s early team can actually work?
  4. 4Nebraska runs its commercialization arm as a separate affiliated nonprofit rather than a university department. Would a structure like that be realistic here, or is there a reason it wouldn’t fit?
  5. 5If a faculty founder’s company fails, is there a defined path back to a full academic role, or does that depend entirely on the individual case?
  6. 6What would it take for staying on faculty while building a company to feel like the easy path, rather than the exception?

8. Vision and openness to change

  1. 1If you could change one thing about the system, what would it be?
  2. 2Which protections are genuinely important to Emory, and where do you think the process could move faster without compromising them?
  3. 3Would Emory Med be open to piloting a faster track or revised terms for a defined category of inventions?
  4. 4Who else should be in this conversation?

After the conversation

Compare what you hear against the benchmarking study — same friction points, same incentive gaps, or something specific to a medical school context? That comparison is what turns one conversation into a framework other universities can use too.

Take live notes in the discovery workbook →