You need to devote strategic resources to this from the outset, because if you don't manage where you get your materials from, it's not publishable. Software is more tightly bound to the academic mission of a university. Much like academic publishing and instructional activities, software innovations require continuous attention to issues of publication and control. Moreover, refining an application entails the participation of the end user. In some cases, provisions for feedback from business partners and customers are included directly in the license agreement.
Software exists largely under a different university policy.
Typically technology transfer operates under university patent policy, which holds that all inventions will be assigned to the institution. While software can fall under a patent policy, it more often falls under a university copyright policy, and such policies generally make fewer intellectual-property claims on the part of the institution. There's good reason for universities to be less involved in copyrights than in patents. While inventions at UW each year number in the hundreds, Barnett says, copyrights number in the hundreds of thousands. Federal law provides that an original work is protected by copyright at the time it's fixed in a tangible medium of expression.