My small company is about to receive a rather large amount of money from a patent infringement law suit.

The owners have decided to split the monetary award amongst themselves. We decided not to just invest the money in our current company, since it operates just fine on it's own.

Each share will amount to about 15 years salary for each of the owners.

Since the tax implications will be quite high, we have discussed setting up (each separately) a foundation.

Each owner is a professional and currently does extensive independent and governmental backed research in various fields.

1) Is this a good (best) idea?
2) Can the current company receiving the monetary award just write a check to each foundation without any tax implications?
2) What are the tax benefits to; the current company; the newly formed foundations?
3) Can we pay ourselves a small salary, drawn from the foundation?
4) Can we fund our own research and deduct the cost?
a) If the research results in patentable (earns $$$), who owns the rights?
b) Can the rights to the patentable ideas be sold?
5) What are the negatives to setting up such a foundation?
6) Can the foundation be dissolved at any point in the future, and what are the negatives associated with doing so?

Foundations are typically set up to manage assets that are intended for charitable grants to non-profit organizations - is that what you're asking about? Setting up a personal charitable foundation has advantages in terms of you being able to take a sizable charitable deduction in one year while maintaining control of the assets and "doling out" grants over many years. There are some pretty strict rules regarding who can be reimbursed - and you as the person setting up the foundation (and presumably its chairman) may not receive any pay from it in any form. You cannot make grants to yourslef or family members. You may be able to be reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses realized in the support of the foundation, but that's about it, and in fact most foundations have a policy of not reimbursing board members. Basically I don't think a foundation does you any good here unless you truly are interested in the monies being used for charitable purposes.