Canadian University Students Taught To Protect IP

innocent_white_lamb writes "Graduate students at Carleton University (Ottawa) are taking steps to protect their intellectual property, at the same time are insuring that they are being properly recognized for their work. This is in response to the increased commercialization of research done at universities, and high-profile cases of copyright infringement by professors at the University of Toronto and Indiana University. 'The initiative will include workshops and a handbook outlining what would constitute an infraction of students' intellectual property rights, Howlett said. Examples include a student not receiving authorship on written work, or having a professor take credit for their work. "This isn't an indictment of profs at all," said Howlett. "It's just to ensure that students' rights are protected in the case that it does happen."'"

Comments

This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh for the days when universities were places for learning and not little more than businesses and when the students were more focussed on learning than making a quick buck or some recognition.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if you're aware of it or not, but Ottawa is Canada's equivalent of Silicon Valley. There are a number of high-tech giants in that area with significant R&D facilities, including Nortel, Corel and IBM. Much of IBM's work on Eclipse is done at their Ottawa labs, for instance. Waterloo, where I attended university, is growing quite significant in this area, as well. But Ottawa is still the leader.

Carleton University has had close industrial ties for years. Michael Cowpland, of Mitel and Corel fame, earned his masters and doctorate from Carleton. This close relationship with industry is a good thing, as many of these companies have in turn provided financial support to Carleton for a variety of initiatives. According to relatives of mine who study there, companies like Nortel and March Networks have funded various engineering laboratories. The university likely would not have had such labs were it not for the financial support from industry.

From what I hear from my relatives, Carleton does need to be more careful about their commercial collaborations. But it's not in the area of engineering or design. It's when it comes to their food services. An exclusivity contract with Coca Cola apparently results in there being only Coke available on that campus. Similarly, the company they contract out their food services to, Aramark, provides terrible service and terrible food, but is willing to charge students an arm and a leg.

So Carleton probably has the right idea collaborating with industry when it comes to their research. But their collaboration with companies for various services on-campus should probably be reconsidered.

Re:This is ridiculous

[melikamp]

Mods?... The parent is far from OT. That was the first thing in my mind as well: how universities are becoming a place where people are taught to own and protect their ideas. Historically, a university was a place where scholars engaged in sharing of their ideas, where the free flow of information was encouraged. Modern universities, otoh, are built after an industrial model. Their curricula are fixed and their original research is sometimes regarded as a trade secret. An awful place to do science at.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Foobar of Borg]

What did I learn? If I invent something as a student, a prof will get the credit for it, and I am better off sitting on my ideas until after I graduate -- it's sad that I can't wait to graduate so that I can do my research -- it's sadder that I won't be able to.

It's even worse in most American universities. While Canadian graduate students are being taught to protect their IP, graduate students at most American universities have to sign a waiver of their rights to anything they discover just to be able to go to graduate school. So, if you are a graduate student in an American university, then yes you certainly should sit on something truly inventive that you discover until after you graduate. Also, make sure you get rid of anything traceable to University equipment and recreate it after you leave.

Re:This is ridiculous

[dlevitan]

It's even worse in most American universities. While Canadian graduate students are being taught to protect their IP, graduate students at most American universities have to sign a waiver of their rights to anything they discover just to be able to go to graduate school. So, if you are a graduate student in an American university, then yes you certainly should sit on something truly inventive that you discover until after you graduate. Also, make sure you get rid of anything traceable to University equipment and recreate it after you leave. I don't see the problem with this. I'm starting grad school this Fall, and I'm getting paid to do research. Why should I be allowed to keep anything I discover if I'm being paid to do the research by someone else? I don't know what you've had to sign, but my waiver basically said the following things:

1. Since you're a student, if you're not being paid to do research and don't use university equipment, you keep whatever you discover.
2. If you are being paid, you're treated like an employee. Employees must sign all patents to the University. The University then decides if it wants to market the patent. If the patent is successfully licensed to someone and a profit is made, the profit is split between the inventor and the university (either 50-50 or 25-75 depending on the circumstances). Otherwise, the patent is returned to you.

I actually like this idea. I want to do research. If I discover something along the way, I don't have to deal with any bureaucracy and still get a nice bonus if my invention is successful.

Re:This is ridiculous

[Gorshkov]

Disclaimer: Carleton is my Alma Mater

Carleton is very, very different from most universities. Last time I saw statistics, around 3/4 of the students were part-time students .... that, btw, is one of the major reasons why it used to do so horribly in the MacLain's annual university ratings.

Carleton is generally geared more towards continuing and part-time education, rather than simply being a "standard" undergraduate university. You'll have people taking their 2nd & 3rd degrees, upgrading their qualifications, or just taking interest courses.

Many of it's services are (were?) geared towards these students. And I suspect that the nature of the students - people with real-world experience, and thus more awareness of these issues - may have something to do with this.

Obligatory..

[StikyPad]

Don't protect it.. tell everyone that IP, freely!

not IP

[Mr. Slippery]

Examples include a student not receiving authorship on written work, or having a professor take credit for their work.

These are not "intellectual property" rights, they are "moral rights" of authors.

The distinction is important because one can be opposed to copyright as an artifical right created by the state but still be in favor of natural moral rights.

I don't think it's just to use force to prevent you from making a copy of one of my poems; but represent yourself as its author and I'll kick your ass.

Useful information

[EvilGoodGuy]

As a Computer Science student, I feel that I'm being taught pretty well what to look out for, and how to protect my rights. And at least where to go, or who to ask if I have concerns. I'm not sure how other majors are at my school though. While related to everyone in any career area, I know that Computer Science views IP as a pretty high priority.

Bad examples.

[lancejjj]

Examples [of an infraction of students' intellectual property rights] include a student not receiving authorship on written work, or having a professor take credit for their work. The rules often change if you get paid.

Employment contracts often stipulate that the employee has relinquished intellectual property rights in the field of business of the employer.

This same idea often applied to graduate students that are paid to help out a professor.

If an employer paid you to write a chapter for a book or to invent a widget, you may not have any intellectual property rights over that work.

If you helped a professor in a lab - and if he's paying you under terms of an employment agreement, that agreement could very well stipulate that you have relinquished all IP rights. Read that agreement before you start to work. If you have a problem with it, negotiate the contractual terms.

This is how a company can "award" employee a $200 "bonus" for an invention that's worth millions of dollars.

Re:turnitin.com

[RockoTDF]

This is referring to student research outside of the classroom, which the majority of students do not participate in, it has nothing to do with term papers and all that plagiarism debate going on /. lately. The idea here is not so much "IP" in the traditional sense, but rather to stop students who are research assistants from being screwed over by some professor who wants sole credit on a publication. I have work getting published, and while I (and most anyone who does academic research) do not want people to have to pay to cite us or just read our work, you can bet your ass we want our names in there though. If anything, this is showing students how to basically open source their work and not let other people take credit for it. I have the good fortune of dealing with profs who will give students primary authorship if the kid did more work than they did, so this thing isn't much of an issue to me personally. This is not teaching students to commercialize their research, in fact that goes against the very nature of scientific research and intellectual advancement.

Re:Ethics

[Locklin]

This is very different from copyright enforcement. This is about attribution. Huge difference.

Most graduate students would be more than happy to have thousands of people read their thesis. The problem arises when they don't get credited, or someone else claims ownership.

This is very different from students wanting $20 from you to read their paper.