University owning your work and IPR

intellix

intellix

intellix

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Derbyshire, Tibshelf
I recently found out after reading through the universities policy on Intellectual Property, that:

Any work that you submit during university, be it research, discovery or an actual product... is owned by the university and that if you try to make any money from it, they will take 2/3 Gross Profit... (if your lucky, thats dependant on the universities policy). If you cure cancer, your supervisor gets the credit for it...

Great! considering I just paid £3,000 to use their facilities and guidance (also the fact that I haven't touched a single resource for my project)...

Opinions?
 
Same as most things.
If you invent something/make something while working for a company, usually the company has the rights to it.
 
intellix said:
I recently found out after reading through the universities policy on Intellectual Property, that:

Any work that you submit during university, be it research, discovery or an actual product... is owned by the university and that if you try to make any money from it, they will take 2/3 Gross Profit... (if your lucky, thats dependant on the universities policy). If you cure cancer, your supervisor gets the credit for it...

Great! considering I just paid £3,000 to use their facilities and guidance (also the fact that I haven't touched a single resource for my project)...

Opinions?
Click to expand...

Standard University practice has been for decades, you would get the credit for anything you discovered your supervisor may get some form of joint credit but the university ownes the rights to exploit your findings.

I seriously doubt you have done anything that will make the uni money.
 
Its very common practise, Im sure if you did actually invent something useful then it would be dealt with on a case by case scenario.
 
intellix said:
Great! considering I just paid £3,000 to use their facilities and guidance
Click to expand...

This is what it really boils down to. They can (pretty fairly) argue that if it wasn't for the facilities, time and infrastructure at the uni you wouldn't have discovered the thing in the first place. £3,000 doesn't really cover the cost of the tuition, facilities, hours of professional guidance, auxiliary equipment like autoclaves, etc. that you would have used. That kind of stuff doesn't come cheap, so it's really only fair they can lay claim to your findings.
 
What many students fail to realise is that even though a University owns the intellectual property, more often than not they will fully support any further development after graduation.

I'm sure it is much 'easier' going into business (as in trying to sell your idea) with a University behind you than going solo.
 
Pman85 said:
What many students fail to realise is that even though a University owns the intellectual property, more often than not they will fully support any further development after graduation.
Click to expand...

Of course they will, they get majority share in its success!
 
Then when you get a job. anything you develop there will most likely be the companys IP. Even if you start your own company and invent somthing succesfull if someone you worked for (company or UNI) believes you based it on stuff you did with them they may try for a slice of the pie,
 
touch said:
Same as most things.
If you invent something/make something while working for a company, usually the company has the rights to it.
Click to expand...

Since when is going to University working for a company. If anything I am paying them to work for me.

This is also worrying as i have just had a track released on a library CD which i also submitted for a university module. They better not take any of my royalties :mad:
 
mattheman said:
so invent it but hold it back till you leave the company.
Click to expand...

They still own the IPR if you developed it on their time or with their facilities.

There was a case a while back about a company suing a former employee because he had the initial idea for an invention while he was working for them (note there was no suggestion he did any work on it at the company). I can't remember how it all turned out.
 
As far as I can see you get to keep a third though? That's pretty generous compared to private industry, where you get to keep your standard salary.


M
 
I thought this policy was due to covering you more than them taking profits?

So if you discovered something/sold a piece of work and someone claimed it to be done/plagarism then the University would have you covered on an insurance front too?

But ye they do own your work, but i think it is for more reasons than just making a profit.
 
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