Material Transfer Agreement
Definition
A Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) defines the legal terms and conditions of the transfer of tangible research property between the owner and the recipient:
- typically the receiving party intends to use it for his/her own research purposes without a planned research collaboration between scientists
- intellectual property and commercial rights are not granted
- research purpose only use requirement
- human subject use usually not permitted
- liability responsibilities
- recovery of direct delivery costs possible ($2,000 maximum)
Boston College Resources
Boston College OTTL Material Transfer Request Form
Related Resources
Examples
Examples of tangible research property include:
- models
- devices
- designs
- computer software
- storage media containing machine instructions
- text
- cell lines
- antibodies
- recombinant materials
- chemical compounds and compositions
- formulations
- plant varieties
- laboratory notebooks and records related to discoveries
University Support
Boston College Office for Technology Transfer and Licensing (OTTL) executes MTAs on behalf of the university.
- Individuals interested in sending or receiving material must submit a completed Material Transfer Request Form (see sidebar).
- A Uniform Biological Material Transfer Agreement (UBMTA) is a standard MTA for the transfer of non-proprietary biological material for mainly non-profit institutions, like Boston College, that have signed the UBMTA Master Agreement. Execution of the MTA’s under the UBMTA is a simple, quick, and straight forward process.
- Transfer of materials from companies to Boston College is often a much larger process.