Intellectual Property Right Considerations From a Public Research University's Perspective.

Public research universities develop intellectual property policies to assure that the new ideas, discoveries and technologies arising from research are used in the best interest of the University and the public it serves.

Most United States public universities and many foreign universities have written policies on the definition, use and ownership of intellectual property.  In general “Intellectual Property” means any invention, discovery, improvement and/or copyrightable work.  Intellectual property includes data, texts, instructional materials, research findings, biological materials and plant lines and may exist in a written or electronic form.

Most universities retain the ownership of intellectual property created through the use of university resources or facilities and developed within the scope of employment of employees. However, many universities make exceptions for course materials and some contractual research results.  Most university intellectual property policies do not affect the rights of faculty to publish their work, except in some cases of patent protections, research agreements or license agreements.

Many universities are currently in intellectual property rights conversations with scientific societies and publishing companies that manage and publish peer reviewed research in journals.  In most cases, the copyright of a published manuscript is owned by the publishing company.  However, Universities still own the data and the use of that data.  Many universities are questioning the rights of publishing companies to own manuscript copyrights.  These conversations and agreements may impact the sharing of published and raw data among researchers.