Are My Ideas Being Stolen? If So, What Then?

BinaryGrind writes "I just got started taking Computer Science classes at my local university and after reading Universities Patenting More Student Ideas I felt I needed to ask: How do I tell if any of my projects while attending classes will be co-opted by my professors or the university itself and taken away from me? Is there anything I can do to prevent it from happening? What do I need to do to protect myself? Are there schools out there that won't take my work away from me if I discover TheNextBigThing(TM)? If it does happen is there anything I can do to fight back? The school I'm attending is Southern Utah University. Since it's not a big university, I don't believe it has a big research and development department or anything of that ilk. I'm mostly wanting to cover my bases and not have my work stolen from me."

Comments

Re:Don't worry

[NeoSkandranon]

I don't mean to sound rude, but you probably won't do anything anyone would care to steal (aside from another student) while you're in school anyway.

It may not be fair to state this for a school career in general, but almost certainly as an undergrad your professors aren't going to be interested in any of your completed assignments.

What's the University's Policy

[Zordak]

If the University's policy is that work done by students is the property of the university, they are not "stealing" your ideas. They are commercializing what you have assigned to them. Find out what they give you in return. Even if all you get is your name on a patent, it's a great resume builder (remember, whatever your agreement says, a prof. can't just steal your idea and claim it's his; a patent MUST list all of the inventors and only the inventors; if an inventor is intentionally omitted, or a non-inventor is intentionally added, the patent is VOID).

I don't represent you. This post is not legal advice.

Re:Only the paranoid survive (not)

[Sparky McGruff]

It's worth adding that in the real world you don't keep your ideas. When you accept a job you are required to sign a piece of paper that assigns ALL your rights to your employer.

To put the IP rules of most universities in context: They ain't that bad. The prevalent rule (law) in place is the Bayh-Dole act that regulates patents/IP derived from projects receiving federal funds. And, since most university research labs are federally funded to some extent, it's generally the rule that applies.

In general, if you're a graduate student, researcher, or faculty working in a University research lab, you are expected to approach the University IP office if you think you have something patentable. They will review it, and if it's deemed to be valuable IP, they'll file the patent or other protection, and they will handle licensing the technology, etc. If the patent/IP ends up worth nothing, then the University eats that cost. Any profits from licensing/etc are divided among the stakeholders -- with the inventor, the inventor's department, and the university all getting substantial shares, as well as a share going back to the funding agency (or agencies). Everything I've read suggests that a similar arrangement exists for non-federally funded work (e.g. through private funds, or using University resources), though the "stakeholders" are different.

So, while the University may "take" your idea, they will do the legal work to patent it, enforce the patent, and license it. And the named inventors will get a cut, usually between 20 and 50% (depending on the number of stakeholders, and the arrangements that the University has with them).

From my discussions with people who did development work at research universities before the Bayh-Dole act, this current setup is a vast improvement. Before the B-D act, it was very hard to get University IP people to move on technology in its early stages (e.g. when it needs to be patented), so, for example, you often couldn't get them to patent drugs before they entered clinical trials. Of course, after a successful clinical trial (when the drug is worth $$$), it's too late for patent protection. And, the terms were far less favorable to the inventor than are currently seen with the B-D act (e.g. the University took all the $$ and gave you a nice "thank you" letter).

Reminds me of every writing class I've ever taught

[elrous0]

Every student talks about their story ideas like they're some sort of brilliant trade secret. But over the course of the semester, two things always become obvious:

1) The story ideas they thought were worthy of stealing almost always sucked on an epic level.

2) Even if their ideas didn't suck, their writing skills are so mediocre that it's very unlikely they would be able to articulate said ideas into any publishable form anyway.

I've encountered hundreds of students who THOUGHT their ideas were worth a damn, but maybe only a dozen who may have been right.

Re:Only the paranoid survive (not)

[Dutch Gun]

Let me just confirm your suspicion from someone inside the game industry. Good ideas are a dime a dozen. Great ones go for about a buck fifty.

I listen to people (or read online) all the time who believe they have a million dollar game idea, and somehow have the notion that this idea alone is worth anything. True value is realized in building your game from concept to prototype to finished project, and the thousands of adjustments you have to make along the way. All the ideas in the world won't do you a bit of good if you don't have a talented team with the artistic vision and technical prowess to execute it.

Even in my day to day experience, I'll sometimes come up with a cool idea for a game I'm currently working on, and mention it to the lead designer. For some reason, I'm still surprised by how often the designer had the same idea, but hadn't gotten around to formally incorporating it into the design document yet.

This isn't to say there aren't a lot of people with great ideas, but people tend to overvalue them significantly. If you can actually turn that game idea into a playable prototype, the value increases by about a thousand-fold. See: Narbacular Drop / Portal.