Incrocio tra Contratti e Proprietà Intellettuale nella Innovazione scientifica e tecnologica: il Modello del Consortium Agreement europeo

This thesis aims to analyse a specific contract model from a structural and functional point of view: the European Consortium Agreement, which is assuming great relevance in the EU legal landscape. The CA allows, indeed, beneficiaries of funding provided by the European Commission to establish a legal framework in order to ensure a proper and efficient management of the subsidized EU research projects. When national laws are unlikely to discipline new phenomena, agreements become an ideal tool for regulating relations among the partners of an indirect action and for managing Intellectual Property Rights. The opening of this paper deals with the role of science and scientific research into the European political and economic context. Chapter One starts with a brief analysis of the importance that innovation holds in the field of economic growth, providing also for an examination of the European policies designed to support the scientific and technological development. The paper focuses on European Framework Programmes and, in particular, on its eighth edition, which is currently in force: the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (Horizon 2020). Chapter Two is ideally divided into two sections. The first one is devoted to the technology transfer (TT) phenomenon, conceptually born in the United States and subsequently spread outside US borders. It represents an useful legal instrument to make university cooperate with industries, and vice versa. Furthermore, an additional point of view is presented, which intends TT as a complementary funding tool to increase research public funding; this could represent a concrete opportunity for universities to obtain more resources. Anyway, besides traditional tasks entrusted to universities such as education and research, a "third mission" is added: the commercialization of knowledge processed within the academic institutions. Section two of the chapter is instead referred to the relationship between contracts (specifically, assignment and licensing) and Intellectual Property (with particularly regard to copyright and patent law). Finally, Chapter Three focuses on two contractual models: the Grant Agreement (GA) and the above-mentioned Consortium Agreement (CA). It will be addressed, in particular, the utter connection and the subordination relationship that involve them. Object of the analysis will be the provisions relating to background knowledge used within the project (indirect action) and the arising results. Since there is not a CA template directly proposed by the European Commission, part of the paper consists in the presentation and comparison of two contractual models: DESCA 2020 and MCARD 2020. Reflecting on their structural or merely terminilogical differences, the final part of this work will highlight how they represent the symptoms of the very different ideological approaches that guide the contract models.