NOTE: Non-disclosure agreements can be crucial tools to protect intellectual property. Courts in the United States have ruled that if one party breaches an NDA and files patent applications on intellectual property using the other party's confidential information, the party that breaches may be obliged to pay damages and assign the entire ownership of the resulting patents to the other party.(See, e.g. SiOnyx LLC, President and Fellows of Harvard College v. Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Hamamatsu Corporation.)Hence, it is important to ensure that appropriate NDAs are put in place before disclosing any confidential information outside of Rice.