ºÚÁÏÍø

While not officially a "research institution", ºÚÁÏÍø faculty and students pursue research projects to advance their understanding of topics of interest and/or to apply their knowledge in new ways. This is a critical aspect of realizing ºÚÁÏÍø's vision to set the standard for preparing leaders to solve the diverse technical challenges of the 21st century. When collaborating with companies, the topic of Intellectual Property (IP) comes up often.  

Objective

The primary objective of the IP management process is to transfer technologies from ºÚÁÏÍø to companies with the interest, ability, and resources to commercialize them such that the public can benefit from ºÚÁÏÍø inventions. Another objective is to capture a fair portion of the value of the invention for the benefit of the inventors, the department in which the invention was developed and ºÚÁÏÍø.  

We understand that companies that choose to engage with ºÚÁÏÍø to advance and apply knowledge in a collaborative way want to retain the Intellectual Property they bring to ºÚÁÏÍø as part of that collaboration. It is not ºÚÁÏÍø's intent to exercise a right over that IP.

Key Elements

To that end, ºÚÁÏÍø's IP Policy includes the following key elements:

• ºÚÁÏÍø does not choose to exercise rights over any corporate IP brought to ºÚÁÏÍø and/or developed in collaboration with ºÚÁÏÍø.
• ºÚÁÏÍø owns IP for anything deemed to fall under the definition of “University Research”. University Research includes those projects initiated by ºÚÁÏÍø faculty or staff using ºÚÁÏÍø resources.
• ºÚÁÏÍø owns the IP of graduate students employed by ºÚÁÏÍø.
• ºÚÁÏÍø does not choose to exercise rights over the IP of undergraduate students. Students or faculty who choose to work on a project in partnership with a company may be required to assign some/all of their IP to that sponsoring organization to participate. This will be established as part of the preliminary project proposal.
• Faculty members who would prefer to retain their IP on projects developed in partnership with corporate partners are expected to contract for that work separately and are not permitted to use ºÚÁÏÍø resources. These projects are not administered through, or governed by, ºÚÁÏÍø.

For additional details, please contact Sheku Kamara, dean of applied research.