Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for not being here for the opening statements. I was detained at something else. My question concerns intellectual property and commercialisation. I am not directing my question at Dr. Browne personally but he is an experienced person and I want him to help me understand the sequence of events. In circumstances where an academic like Dr. Browne leads research and arrives at an innovation or something of novelty with value that is subsequently commercialised and results in a spin-out, I understand how the academic institution acquires a stake in that company. That is entirely logical. What I want to understand is how the individual researcher or academic acquires a stake in that entity.