Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1944 [PAGE 397]

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394

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[June 19

AGREEMENT W I T H ENAMELED UTENSIL MANUFACTURERS COUNCIL FOR COOPERATIVE RESEARCH ON ENAMEL STANDARDS (11) T h e Director of the Engineering Experiment Station recommends approval of an agreement with the Enameled Utensil Manufacturers Council for research on enamel standards. This agreement is for a period of one year beginning July I, 1943, and the Council has agreed to contribute $S,IOO for the expenses of the investigation. It is a renewal of a project which has been carried on by the Department of Ceramic Engineering under the sponsorship of the Enameled Utensil Manufacturers Council since September I, 1940. Since this investigation was started, the Board of Trustees has modified its regulations covering such cooperative researches. T h e renewal agreement conforms to these regulations except as to the provision that equipment bought from funds supplied by the Council shall become the property of the University of Illinois. T h e Director of the Engineering Experiment Station recommends that this requirement be waived because it would be considered unreasonable by the Council—and in fact by any agency which might wish to support a cooperative investigation—and because the experience of the Engineering Experiment Station is that return of such equipment to the sponsor of a project is rarely ever requested by the cooperating agency. T h e Director reports that there is another contract expiring June 30 involving an investigation supported by five companies where it would be impossible to secure the approval of their legal departments of an agreement which contains such a provision. On its face the stipulation that any equipment purchased out of the funds supplied for the investigation shall become the property of the University affords the University opportunity to purchase equipment with donated funds beyond that which might be required for the research, since the equipment will become the property of the University in the end. This does not imply that the University would be influenced by such a consideration, but nevertheless legal departments of contributing agencies examining such contracts are duty bound to point out the theoretical possibilities of all regulations, including the one in question. I concur in the recommendation of the Director that the agreement with the Enameled Utensil Manufacturers Council be approved by the Board without the requirement that the property purchased from the funds supplied for the investigation become the property of the University.

On motion of Mr. Davis, this exception to the rules was authorized in the case of this agreement.

RELEASE OF PATENT ON DISCOVERY OF NEW PROCESS FOR MAKING LIGHTWEIGHT INSULATING BRICK (12) At the meeting of the Board of Trustees on April 29, 1943 (Minutes, page 338), there was submitted a report from the Faculty Committee on Patents of a process for producing lightweight insulating brick developed by Messrs. R. E. Grim and F. L. Cuthbert, of the State Geological Survey Division, and W . H . Allaway, of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, as a result of a research investigation sponsored by the University of Illinois, the Geological Survey, and the Illinois Clay Products Company. T h e contract provides that the University shall decide whether it will apply for a patent of any discovery resulting from this investigation. T h e Committee was of the opinion that no action should be taken until further development of the process, and the Board concurred in that opinion. T h e Faculty Committee is still not convinced that the time is ripe for the filing of a patent at the expense of the University, but since the sponsors are anxious to proceed at once, the Committee recommends that "the sponsor of the research, the Illinois Clay Products Company, on payment of the entire cost of applying for and securing a patent, be given free use of the patent as a nonexclusive licensee, the sponsor agreeing that in case other persons, firms, or corporations are licensed, such licensee shall pay the University a royalty which in the opinion of the University is fair to the sponsor and to the public; it is understood that the sponsor will keep the University informed as to when