Masters research project - Who owns the IP - me and/or uni?

impster

When I was doing my post grad course I made sure every piece of work had a phrase like: "This has been created by, and remains the property of (MY NAME) as an original piece of work. Any attempt to make use of this work must be authorised by the aforementioned in writing. By reading/making use of this piece of work you are agreeing to the above."

As long as no-one disputed it, I could then assume that the 'conditions' had been accepted.

Never had any problems with this, and every piece of work I did for my post-grad now belongs solely to me.

Hope that helps you mate.

Impster

Jamp

Thanks to all. My girlfriend's dad is a lecturer at another uni and has told her what disclaimer (similar to above) I should write on my thesis to best protect it. I haven't seen her/it yet but will post it up exactly later this evening. Not sure what to do/say in the viva but I guess I could put a disclaimer up as the first page?

I did a module in innovation management last year and the lecturer seemed a nice guy so I will try to get his views and advice on how to proceed. Shef do have a business incubator department, I'll try to find out more about that.

It's a shame I don't have more time to explore my options with this. Hopefully I can still make something of it without getting screwed over though.

Thanks again.

Horatio_3

From what I know, the uni has IP.

Jamp

Ok guys, what do you think of this?

Copyright Notice

This document has been created by, and remains the intellectual property of, the author: *my full name*. All content is protected by copyright. The author maintains all statutory rights and intellectual property. The contents of this document, including the novel use of a particular type of *** with ***, which is the invention of the author alone, shall be considered confidential, and is not to be disclosed to any third party without the express written permission of the author. Copying of any part of this document is not permitted without the express written permission of the author. By reading this document, you accept to be bound by these terms.

Voyager2002

Well done #15. As mentioned above, patents are extremely expensive. Copyright, including design copyright, provides a far more cost-effective form of IP protection.

melancholly

i'd double check all the forms you signed when you registered on the course, just in case there was a sneaky clause in there giving the university IP..... then you can be sure that you'll be ok

Redwing_3

I know that with the 3 Universities I applied for, all have clauses saying that anything you create, research, publish whilst studying, all IP belongs to the University. This means that even if you do not create the work as part of your project, or you create the work in a different country whilst you're on holiday. It belongs to the University.

Some clever fellows have spotted this and changed the contractual agreement before they would accept it, so they retain all IP on work they create outside of the University environment.

greyster

I studied at both Plymouth and Lancaster and on both dissertations I had the choice to fill in waivers. If you don't then it would be the university's property.

Its just like working for a company, anything you make at work is the company's not yours.

Jamp

Finally found Shef's policy regarding IP, with the help of the student advice centre. http://www.shef.ac.uk/calendar/iprights.html

Shef own all IP from my work, despite me having paid for their services and not vice versa like an academic/employee. They will grant me a 'reasonable share' of any benefit accruing from my work.

It would seem I automatically accepted these terms by registering, despite not being aware of it! Perhaps that is my fault though.

I had my viva yesterday despite the thesis not actually being finished (due to delays in performing experiments, beyond my control - the uni's fault). The assessor had a draft copy with the copyright notice above (post 15) attached. He was not impressed at all with it and seemed quite offended. I apologised and explained it was based on the best advice I had from a senior lecturer at another university, as I had not received any guidance from my supervisor on the matter (despite emailing and visiting to ask). He didn't seem to accept this, but the viva proceeded.

He continually made fun of my copyright issue, particularly during the questions when he did a diagram to ask what I thought of his alternative way to achieve a particular goal, writing Copyright *His Name* and having a good laugh with my supervisor. I do have a sense of humour, but this made me feel intimidated and undermined and I feel was wholly inappropriate for a viva setting. I have raised this matter with my supervisor today and he said not to worry about it because he checked carefully that my marks were unaffected. I don't really feel that's good enough after my assessor's unprofessional conduct, but there's nothing I can do without jeopardising my thesis marks! I'm not convinced that my performance was as it should have been as I lost my train of thought several times thanks to his so-called jokes, and I felt increasingly uncomfortable and angry throughout.

Anyway, that's a separate issue to IP. Unfortunately it seems like I'm going to miss out on that. More fool me for doing something valuable at university - I won't miss this place.

surfcat

The copyright paragraph in many of the posts above is pretty pointless and has no legal weight. If you are doing a course or research at uni then by and large the intellectual property will belong to them. Just because you stick some implied consent nonsense on the front doens't make it legally binding.