Academia at Risk : Antiquated IP Policy

Our schools and colleges face enlarging potholes on the information superhighway because of antiquated intellectual property policies in academia. Many academic institutions have no explicit intellectual property policy; others may have established policies for inventions by faculty and researchers and trademark licensing for major college football teams. However, the current widespread computer literacy coupled with the explosive economic growth of the Internet, multimedia content, and computerized entertainment now enable students and nontraditional academic participants to create valuable assets. Additionally, group-based entrepreneurial classes rarely are structured for clear intellectual property ownership. Traditional work-for-hire analysis was not crafted for students and minors. Most in academia are ill-prepared for the currently needed advance definitions of who owns what. With sample draft acknowledgment and policy