What are access rights?

Access rights means rights to use results or background under the terms and conditions that the partners have agreed to.

Normally this is agreed between the partners in this way:

During the project
- Access to background is on a royalty free basis
- This is for background needed to perform a partner’s work in the project

This means that the partners share for free their knowledge needed to do their work during the project

After the project
- Access to background for using own results is on fair and reasonable conditions
- Access rights to results for internal research activities is on a royalty-free basis

This means that a partner needing knowledge that belongs to another partner for using own project results can do so on conditions agree upon. But for further internal research access it is free.

“Fair and reasonable conditions” can mean any condition agreed upon in advance or negotiated later and can be:

For free
For a licence fee
Any conditions or price agreed upon

However the point is that it should be fair and reasonable. Given that the partners have worked together in a project and produced results together this phrase is accepted in most agreements and the partners trust each other in that they can agree on the terms to everybody’s satisfaction.

Agreements may also have clauses on how the rights are handled towards affiliated companies/partners or third parties i.e. if the rights can be extended to other companies/institutions that a partner has relations to. This may heavily complicate the agreement text.

To get access you must request it (in writing) from the other partner(s).

The important thing to consider is:

Does it matter for me how another partner handle the project results towards affiliates or third parties
Do I want to share my results with affiliates or third parties

You may ask yourself if a scenario where the background you gave to a project partner on fair and reasonable conditions is now used by another company in totally new settings will be ok. Or if you have affiliates or third parties that you see as potential users of your results.

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