Recommended Plan of Action: Intellectual Property Rights and Responsibilities-A Student's Guide
The following represents a recommended plan of action for the students portrayed in the scenario. The group of students should:
- discuss intent with the principal investigator
- read terms and conditions of the laboratory's research agreements with NSF and with the industrial sponsor
- determine the current technology licensing situation with respect to intellectual property in that laboratory
- continue to respect all the industrial sponsor's confidential information and trade secrets
They should visit and seek advice from:
- Technology and Licensing Office (TLO) on all matters relating to intellectual property considerations and licensing agreements that are still in effect
- Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) on matters relating to the actual agreement struck between the laboratory, NSF, and the industrial sponsors
- MIT's Intellectual Property Counsel on the interpretation of specific clauses in the agreements
- Principal Investigator to obtain his or her assessment of the situation
They should be aware that:
- assuming the presence of an overlapping research funding situation, the government's requirements would have precedence over the industrial sponsor's requirements
- as MIT does not do confidential research, the technology developed would be in the public domain unless a licensing agreement can be made for exclusivity considerations
- the sponsors of the project are immediately granted a "non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license for internal research purposes" and also have three options which allow commercialization of the technology. (Specifics are contained in the model agreements.)
Some issues to which they should pay close attention include:
- checking for infringement of any exclusive rights
- checking specifics of tangible research property
- determining the rightful owner of invention via considerations of the following clauses:
- "in the course of sponsored research"
- "work-for-hire"
- "significant use of funds and property"
- being aware of their right to personal use of copies of original work and responsibility to continue to report all intellectual property developed
Cite this page:
"Recommended Plan of Action: Intellectual Property Rights and Responsibilities-A Student's Guide"
Online Ethics Center for Engineering
7/27/2006 9:35:11 AM
National Academy of Engineering
Accessed: Friday, December 05, 2008
<www.onlineethics.org/CMS/research/rescases/ipr-index/ipr-plan.aspx>