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Quota-share

In Intellectual Property (IP), the notion of quota-share is applied to two different concepts: on the one hand, the respective ownership between institutions (public and/or private) of an intellectual property title (a patent, software, etc.) or know-how; on the other hand, the respective inventive contribution of the inventors/authors (staff of the institutions) to the protected intellectual creation.
Particular attention must be paid to the declaration of inventive shares. Indeed, the amount of exploitation income that each inventor/author will receive in case of exploitation of the IP by a third party, as well as, if applicable, the possible collection of the patent premium paid by the employers, will depend on these declarations, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, according to the policies of the institutions and site agreements in force, the shares of ownership of the employers as well as the designation of the agent.

The rules for the distribution of ownership shares between public institutions are generally laid down in the site agreements. For example, a fairly widespread distribution key today is the equitable distribution between the public institutions having the status of trusteeship of the laboratory from which the intellectual creation originated.

A national proposal for the distribution of property shares between public establishments is currently being studied on the following principle:
  • 30% to be shared equally between the supervisory bodies of the research laboratory from which the intellectual creation originated;
  • 70% to be shared equally between the supervisory bodies of the laboratory employing the inventors/authors.
     
When several laboratories are involved in the intellectual creation, the calculation of the co-ownership shares must be done by laboratory according to the distribution key that applies to it. The shares are then weighted by the weight of the laboratory in the intellectual creation. This weight is generally determined by the percentage of the inventive shares of the inventors/authors belonging to the laboratory concerned.    

The determination of the inventive and co-ownership quotas will thus make it possible to distribute the exploitation revenues according to the following distribution: the agent in charge of the management and the valuation of the IP receives 20% (maximum) for his mandate; 30% (at least in addition to the agent's share to reach 50%) are distributed among the co-owners of the public institutions according to their respective co-ownership quotas and 50% are distributed among the inventors/authors according to their inventive quotas.

Article written by Isabelle Chéry and Gaëlle Calvary.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)