Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation › Startups › cmuinventors › cmu-inventors-index

The process and effort required to create a startup company around your research work can seem to be daunting and overwhelming for a busy faculty member or PhD student/post-doc who are often unfamiliar with how to proceed. The various sections of this website are designed to explain what is involved in creating a startup, and to provide information and access to resources that can guide you through this endeavor. The sections are designed to be stand-alone—you can scroll to find a topic and resources that are relevant to a current issue that you are facing; but they also include cross-references to other sections for related information.

This Section, From Idea to Startup, provides an overview of steps and processes that CMU inventors should be aware of and undertake within CMU to protect their inventions and transfer rights to use their inventions into a startup company.

Subsections include:

Why do a startup? This subsection describes some of the potential benefits of seeking to bring the results of your research to real-world implementation through a startup

CMU Intellectual Property Policy and Processes for Invention Disclosure and IP Protection: This subsection provides an overview and references to CMU’s Intellectual Property, covering topics such as ownership of IP, and revenue sharing between CMU and inventor for licensed IP. It also describes the process for filing and invention disclosure with CTTEC and the steps that CTTEC takes to evaluate and protect inventions. Some fundamentals of patent law are also covered.

CMU approach to startup licensing: This subsection provides an overview of CMU’s standardized approach to licensing of IP to a startup formed by the inventor. It describes the basic parameters of the business deal, and the variables that affect the deal terms. It also describes options that are available to CMU startups in the licensing deal that allows the startup to conserve cash during the early years of the startup.

CMU programs to support startup exploration, development and growth: CMU has a robust set of programs and resources to support the exploration of startup formation, as well as to support those who do proceed with launching a company, and for later stage companies to continue to get support as they grow. This subsection describes the range of support resources and provides links for additional information. Note that there are many entrepreneurial support resources outside of CMU that are described in the Startup Toolbox section.