Brussels, January 17, 2007 - EICTA, the industry body representing the European digital technology industry, today releases its contract model for projects to be funded under the 7th Research Framework Programme, recently adopted by the European Council and the European Parliament.

Benefiting from the experience acquired from earlier Framework Programmes by the legal experts of the large and small company members of EICTA, the Integrated Project Consortium Agreement (IPCA) template will serve as a reliable basis for the key European industrial R&D players when entering into agreements with their partners under FP7.

The EICTA IPCA template is composed of two parts:

• IPCA Part I contains the information specific to the project, such as its title, the partners involved, their representatives and the project coordinator. It should be signed by all parties of the Consortium.
• IPCA Part II regroups the general conditions, defining the roles and duties of each party, the intellectual property rights and liability regimes, and the conditions to leave the project or to exploit its outputs.

The EICTA IPCA template was established in a joint effort with European telecom operators such as British Telecom and Orange, and was endorsed by the European digital technology industry.

Following the adoption of the Model Grant Agreement by the European Commission, therefore, this IPCA template will be the reference contractual model for the European telecommunications technology, information technology and consumer electronics industries.

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  For further information on European industry's 7th Framework Programme Integrated Project Consortium Agreement (IPCA) template, please contact:

Daniel Karam at EICTA, +32 (0)473 645 387, daniel.karam@eicta.org

Web site: http://www.eicta.org