A committee at Ohio State is revising the university’s Intellectual Property policy.
The policy, which has not been updated in more than a decade, defines the ownership and commercialization of intellectual property developed at Ohio State.
Ohio State instituted its intellectual property policy 30 years ago. Technology has changed a lot since then. But some principles have not. This is an excerpt from a speech given last week by Ohio State University president Dr. Michael Drake.
“We want to provide an environment that supports and inspires our faculty to their most creative and productive accomplishments. This gives me an opportunity to reaffirm our belief in the bedrock principle that the traditional scholarly and artistic intellectual endeavors produced by our faculty belong to our faculty,” Drake said.
But what about non-traditional discoveries? The intellectual property policy not only applies to faculty, it also includes work done by staff, students, even visitors working in campus facilities. Those who might make ‘discoveries or inventions, or generate intellectual property, ideas, innovations or know-how that can serve the public through commercial development…’ all are subject to the policy. And for the most part, the policy originally said the university owns that intellectual property. Yael Vodovotz is an OSU professor who heads the committee revising the Intellectual Property or IP policy.
“The bottom line is that we really wanted to improve the commercialization and IP part … the amazing research that’s happening here at OSU and to make sure that the faculty are getting what they need to and the university gets what they need to and we just moved the process forward for everyone’s benefit,” Vodovotz says.
In 2012, Ohio State received only about $2 million in income from commercialized research-related activities. Vodovotz says Ohio State ought to be doing better.
“We’re not doing so hotly in that area right now and I think that’s no secret and so we just need to do it in a better way,” Vodovotz says.
But the committee’s earlier draft worried some faculty. Ulrich Heinz, an OSU physics professor, was concerned that this previous draft was somewhat vague as to who owns what.
“Because that would basically mean that everything that I do as a physicist which is supported by the Department of Energy or the National Science Foundation I would not directly have the right to publish that and assign the copyrights to the publishing journal because it wouldn’t belong to me,” Heinz says.
There was an outspoken stream of faculty feedback, Heinz says, to narrow the focus. And another draft has been released. Heinz says the latest version still has significant weaknesses but he expects additional changes.
“It’s a work in progress and I would like to recognize that this work in progress is moving in the right direction; that we all understand that it has some weaknesses but nothing that cannot be addressed by some more hard work on the part of this committee,” Heinz says.
No one knows how long the final version will take to prepare. But Heinz says:
“We all agree that this is an important document and we will take the time that it needs to get it right rather than to get it done,” Heinz says.