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(JUNE 2014)
The statement that follows, prepared by a subcommittee of the Association's Committee A on Academic Free- dom and Tenure, was approved by Committee A and adopted by the Association's Council in November 2013.
The management of inventions, patents, and other forms of intellectual property in a university setting warrants special guidance because it bears on so many aspects of the university's core missions, values, and functions, including academic freedom, scholarship, research, shared governance, and the transmission and use of academic knowledge by the broader society. Intellectual property refers broadly to patents, copy- rights, trademarks, and (according to some definitions) trade secrets, in addition to the underlying subject mat- ter that is controlled by the owner of these property rights established by statute (namely, inventions, works of authorship, and identifiers that distinguish goods and services in the marketplace). Patents provide the owner with the right to exclude others from practic- ing-making, using, and selling-an invention.1 A patent, unlike a copyright, goes beyond the protection of written expression to accord an exclusive right to the operational principles that underlie the invention. copyright prohibits unauthorized copying or modifi- cation of particular instances of expression; a patent permits the exclusion of work created independently, is not limited to the precise "expression," and has no "fair use" exception, even for nonprofit purposes. Thus, patents may have an additional and potentially substantial impact on university research, may affect the value and role of scholarly publication, and may influence collaborations and the transfer of technology developed or improved in other research settings. The management of university-generated intellectual prop- erty is complex and carries significant consequences for those involved in direct negotiations (faculty inventors, companies, university administrators, attorneys, and invention-management agents) as well as those who may be affected (competing companies, the public, patients, and the wider research community).
Whether ownership of a particular invention resides with the inventors or is assigned by the inventors to a university technology-transfer office, a university-affiliated foundation, or an independent invention-management agency, it is essential that all those involved recognize the distinctive role that inventions arising out of scholarly research should have. faculty investigators and inventors, together with university administrators, must communicate this role and hold those involved accountable when they are engaged in...