What to Do When Things Don't go According to Plan

This webinar will be beneficial to technology licensing officers who monitor licenses, as well as their operations colleagues, who are involved in ongoing post-execution management of a contract and related business relationships. Things change. The license is signed, but things aren't going as you expected. What to do? Ideally the agreement itself should be sufficiently robust to accommodate changing circumstances and manage risk associated with non-compliance with contract terms. How do you achieve this? What if you didn't? The need for flexibility in the agreement, mechanisms to accomplish this and accommodating a partner's needs will be discussed on the basis that an agreement is about fostering a relationship with a licensee, not just generating revenue. Examples of potential situations and resulting non-compliance will be considered, including: - Product development issues and failure to meet diligence milestones and other deliverables; - Failure to raise anticipated capital or lack of product sales and inability to make financial payments; - Dearth of internal processes or failure to understand the contract on the part of a licensee resulting in lack of compliance with progress and financial reporting requirements; - Patent prosecution matters (ie expiry, lapsing of patents, responsibility for patent management), - Changes in licensee status (ie acquisition or asset purchase of or liquidation), - Action or failure to act by the TTO impacting on licensed rights. Managing problems from a strategic perspective to protect underlying interests and objectives in a university/industry business partnership will be considered. This will include discussion of how to deal with contract terms that aren't working, modifying milestones, setting up payment plans, as well as other ways to find a 'modified win-win' through assignment of rights and termination. Examples of these situations will be presented to illustrate strategy followed. Means to facilitate effective agreement management in this context will also be discussed.