These arrangements are personal agreements between a faculty member and a private company. While the Office of Legal Affairs cannot provide personal legal advice to faculty members, we recommend that you carefully review the terms and conditions of your consulting arrangements. You should be particularly careful that these arrangements do not conflict with Georgia Tech's policies on Conflict of Interest, Consulting and Intellectual Property. You should also be careful that any obligations you agree to do not prevent you from conducting your normal research and teaching duties. To avoid conflict with your Georgia Tech-assigned duties, we recommend that the following language be included in your consulting agreement:
This agreement is made subject to the understanding that Consultant is a member of the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT), that he/she must fulfill certain obligations including teaching, directing laboratory operations and conducting research; and that as a result of his/her employment by GIT, GIT has certain rights to intellectual property developed by him/her and any rights conveyed hereunder shall be subject to those rights. Under no circumstances are any rights to GIT or Georgia Tech Research Corporation intellectual property conveyed hereunder. All consulting activity hereunder shall be on a non-interfering basis with normal GIT activities. Nothing contained in this Agreement shall directly or impliedly affect the obligations listed above.
The Georgia Tech Conflict of Interest (COI) Office was created to manage conflict of interest issues that may arise from faculty relationships with outside entities. The COI Office works with faculty to resolve any conflicts of interest in accordance with regulations and Institute policies, as well as offering compliance training.