Introduction
Material transfer agreements (MTAs) are contracts that allow one
party to perform research using the materials of another party.
These agreements provide a mechanism to protect the interests of
the owners of discoveries and inventions, while promoting data and
material sharing in the research community. Although these are
admirable goals in principle, MTAs have a bad reputation with some
researchers and institutions for being overly complex and, in fact,
hindering research. Nonetheless, MTAs are important for defining
the rights, responsibilities, and obligations of the parties with
respect to research collaborations and need to be carefully
considered, particularly with respect to ownership of IP rights
implicated by the transferred materials.
