Professor Willie Donnelly:

What happens is one indicate one's interest to exploit IP. One enters into negotiations and the institute, according to its policy, will set certain conditions. Normally, as the committee has already heard, the ownership of IP is retained by the institute. The institute can agree to license IP to a company. If the company fails, the institute can recoup the IP. The institute continues to own the IP licence. Normally, there are certain conditions set to ensure the request is meaningful. What is important in terms of the first request, at least for our institute, is the requirement that one raises funding from the marketplace. The requirement on FeedHenry was to raise €500,000 in investment. Once that happens the IP is assigned to the company. The institute still retains the right to recoup the IP if the company fails. What happened was the person who entered into negotiation on behalf of FeedHenry agreed that there would be assignment of the IP to the company if it raised €500,000 and in return for that the institute would get a percentage.