How much knowledge should a quantum technology company share to help a partner adopt its technology? Who should control improvements developed together? And how can today’s agreement support tomorrow’s licensing opportunities? These decisions connect technical development directly with the design of a scalable business.

The IPBA Plattform article The Quantum IP Gap  describes a mismatch between the practical support quantum companies seek and the way IP expertise is publicly communicated. Drawing on an Open Foresight Board study, it highlights companies’ need for guidance on timing, confidentiality, collaboration and commercialization. Scientific expertise and patent procedures are often more prominent in public descriptions of advisory services than the business decisions that companies face. This is an important task for IP management education. At the CEIPI IP Business Academy, we bring questions from industrial practice into teaching so that future IP managers learn to connect protection and licensing choices with business objectives. The following case examines how a company can enable technical collaboration while retaining the ability to develop and license its technology across multiple partnerships.

Magdalena Hauser, co-founder and co-CEO of ParityQC, reviewed the case and its questions. She welcomes the preparation of future IP managers for these challenges and confirms that the issues reflect recurring decisions and negotiations in the IP licensing business. Her feedback helped sharpen the case’s focus on knowledge sharing, rights to project results and the practical implementation of IP strategy.

Mini case study

A growing quantum technology company develops technical methods and software components that help translate computational tasks into implementations suitable for quantum hardware. Its business model centres on licensing its IP and software to hardware developers and system providers. The company is expanding across hardware environments and application areas. Collaboration provides engineering expertise and routes to market. Effective integration requires both sides to share technical knowledge and develop interfaces that enable their technologies to work together.

Projects produce both implementation-specific results and improvements that may be useful across future partnerships. As interfaces evolve, the boundaries between each partner’s contribution become difficult to define. Partners seek rights to the resulting technology in return for their investment and technical input. Requests range from usage rights to joint ownership, with different consequences for subsequent licensing.

Management must decide how much knowledge to disclose to enable efficient collaboration and wider adoption, and which know-how to keep confidential. Some valuable knowledge is not adequately covered by patents. The software offering also raises choices about which components to make available under open-source licences and which to license on proprietary terms. These choices must work in day-to-day collaboration. Employees need to understand what they may share with each partner and under which conditions. Resources are limited, while the future value of improvements and the requirements of customers and other stakeholders remain uncertain.

Question

How should the company structure its IP portfolio, licensing model and partnership arrangements to enable adoption and interoperability while preserving its ability to develop and commercialize its technology across future partners and applications?

In your answer, address the following questions:

1 . How should management distinguish reusable capabilities from implementation-specific contributions and decide what to protect, disclose or keep confidential? Include the role of patents and the choice between open-source and proprietary licensing for software components.

2 . How should ownership of project results and access to existing technology and improvements be allocated? Discuss how usage rights, reciprocal licensing and possible joint ownership affect partner investment, interoperability and the company’s ability to license its technology elsewhere.

3 . How should the company translate these decisions into practical guidance for employees and review its approach as technology, markets and stakeholder requirements evolve? Explain how disclosure decisions and partnership experience should inform portfolio priorities.

Why this is a highly practice-relevant question

The case connects the commercial need for collaboration with the IP decisions that make a licensing business scalable. Partners need enough technical access to integrate their contributions, while each company must consider how the agreed rights affect its future business opportunities. Evolving interfaces make it difficult to separate existing capabilities from newly developed results. Ownership and usage rights therefore need to be considered together. An arrangement that supports one implementation may also influence the company’s ability to reuse improvements or enter further partnerships.

Protection and disclosure decisions also extend to the software offering. The balance between proprietary and open-source components must be assessed alongside patents, confidential know-how and the intended licensing model. Employees need usable guidance to apply these choices during technical exchanges. Future IP managers must connect these decisions with the technology roadmap and changing market and stakeholder requirements. The question asks them to justify an integrated approach and identify when new evidence should lead to a review of protection, disclosure or licensing choices.

About Magdalena Hauser

Magdalena Hauser is co-founder and co-CEO of ParityQC, which she leads alongside Prof. Wolfgang Lechner. Founded in 2020 as a spin-off from the University of Innsbruck and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the company develops architectures for quantum computers. Her work brings together deep-tech entrepreneurship and the commercialization of research within the quantum computing ecosystem.

Before ParityQC, Hauser co-founded and led I.E.C.T. – Hermann Hauser, supporting research spin-offs, and helped establish Hermann Hauser’s investment activities in continental Europe. She studied business and interior architecture and co-founded the non-profit think tank AI Austria in 2018. That year, she was included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 DACH list for her investment activities. In 2021, she received Austria’s Entrepreneur of the Year award in the innovation category.