To remove obstacles to joint research, four leading technology companies and seven U.S. universities on Monday plan to announce an accord on principles for making software developed in collaborative projects freely available.

The legal wrangling over intellectual property rights in research projects involving universities and companies, specialists say, can take several months, sometimes more than a year. The delays not only slow the pace of innovation but have also prompted some companies to seek university research partners outside of the United States, where negotiations over intellectual property are less time-consuming.

“This a great start to addressing the problem,” said Peter Freeman, assistant director for computer and information science and engineering at the National Science Foundation.

“It’s a recognition by both sides that for precompetitive research, ‘it’s the science, stupid.’ It’s not the intellectual property.”

The companies in the agreement are IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Cisco Systems. The universities are Stanford, California at Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Illinois, Texas, Georgia Tech and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. They have agreed that intellectual property developed in open collaborations will be available without charge for commercial and academic use.

Nice frank statement from Freeman. Imagine what the PR departments from each company are going to produce!