Slashdot Mirror
Student Researcher Wins Patent Dispute
Matthew writes: "For years, student researchers at universities have alleged that the hierarchical system in academic research allows supervising PhDs to steal and patent inventions that were rightfully discovered by students. The Federal Circuit finally addressed these concerns by interpreting the law in a way that strictly protects the rights of student researchers. As such, student researchers will now be able to sue their supervising PhDs for any actions that are not in the best interests of the student researcher or the patent rights of the student researcher."
All this is going to do is make students have to sign of their rights to patents and research, just like those of us in the real world do.
Wouldn't it be nice if schools got all the money they wanted and the army had to hold jumble sales for guns
As a co-inventor on US Patent# 5,331,222 (which has turned out to be basically worthless ;), I'd like to suggest to graduate students that they ask around as to whether a research advisor is proactive in getting students names on research papers, patents, etc., or whether they are not.
I've had the luck to work for two professors who were very pro-active about getting student names on papers and patents.