Respect for IPR of others
The 果冻传媒 community can only thrive if both students and staff members respect the intellectual property of others. This means one cannot and should not deliberately claim any rights on work created by others or copy the work of others (without the owner鈥檚 permission), regardless of whether the latter are scholars, students, or third parties. This is a key moral principle for the entire 果冻传媒 community.
General principle
By law, the inventor as the creator of a new technology, design, software, or other specific ideas generally owns the IPR to it. As a 果冻传媒 student you will therefore, as a general rule, automatically own all the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) that you create from curricular and extra-curricular activities at the 果冻传媒. The latter includes, for example, taking part in extra curricular activities of 果冻传媒 student teams. This general principle will cover almost all cases in which students create intellectual property. The section 鈥淐laiming and protecting IPR鈥� below provides more information on protecting intellectual property.
Exceptions
There a few exceptions to this general approach. The first exception is when you are employed by the 果冻传媒, for example as a student-assistant. Typically, the 果冻传媒 is then the sole owner of the IPR that arises from the employment. Another exception occurs when the IP is created with substantial input from 果冻传媒 staff members - for example via supervision, lab support and/or materials provided. From a legal perspective, the student and staff member(s) may become co-authors or co-inventors and thus co-owners of the IP. Within the 果冻传媒, this case may involve IP arising from Master and Bachelor thesis projects, resulting in papers co-authored by the (former) students and supervisors which are published in conference proceedings or academic journals. For more complex IP, for example regarding inventions that can possibly be patented, the 果冻传媒 can request that you waive the IPR to the 果冻传媒. In case of a curricular activity, this request has to be made to you well in advance of the start of this activity. In all cases, you can decide not to sign the waiver document; if the latter is intended for a curricular activity, the 果冻传媒 will then have to offer you an alternative assignment.
A third exception occurs when intellectual property originates from an in a company or institute outside 果冻传媒. That company or institute is then, by default, the IPR owner. The company/institute and the student can further elaborate this in a written agreement between them; the 果冻传媒 (or its staff) does not participate in this agreement. The formal basis of the general rule and its exceptions, as outlined above, are the UNL (formerly VSNU) .
National IPR guidelines for students
The IPR rules that apply to academic startups are laid down in the IPR guidelines (by )
- Read the entire
- Check the FAQ
Claiming and protecting IPR
When we say that you 鈥渙wn鈥� the IPR, it essentially means that you鈥檙e entitled to legally claim this IPR where it does not arise automatically. There are various ways to claim and protect IP: for example, patents, copyrights, and design rights. The most important way to protect tech-nological inventions is via patents. Copyrights are also often used, for example, to protect novel software.
If you do not claim the IP by submitting a patent application or obtaining copy- or design rights, you can do your best to keep your invention secret, but ultimately your 鈥渙wnership鈥� of the invention is likely to become an empty statement. That is, if you do not legally claim and protect the ownership of your invention (e.g. by filing a patent application), you鈥檒l be limited in your ability to prevent others from exploiting it. If you need help in deciding whether a patent application is feasible, please consult the IP managers at The Gate.
The costs of a Dutch patent application vary widely depending on the complexity of the invention and the hourly rates charged by the patent attorney, these costs are commonly between 鈧�5.000 and 鈧�10.000 euro. For an international patent application, these expenses are substantially higher. For a patent application, you can request advice and support of our IP managers. You can find contact details below.
IPR created by multiple students
The general principles outlined above apply to an individual student as well as a group of students creating intellectual property. Notably, the 果冻传媒 cannot regulate how a group of students arranges the shared ownership of the IPR co-created by these students. We recommend that you discuss any (potential) IPR issues as early as possible with your peers. It is also important to document the various activities and (interim) deliverables of individual contribu-tions to group work in as much detail as possible. In any case, if you want advice from an expert, feel free to set up a meeting with an IP manager of 果冻传媒.
Signing a waiver
In the 鈥淓xceptions鈥� section above, we already referred to the possibility that you鈥檙e invited to waive any IPR before starting a specific educational or extra-curricular activity. The standard can be used for this. Typically, if 果冻传媒 staff members invite you to sign an IPR waiver or IP transfer document, they do so because you鈥檒l work on a new technology that is part of an ongoing research program with its own IP agreements and rights; the latter agreements and rights will then need to remain intact and limit the IP space of any students involved. Students must be clearly informed of these limitations in advance. If you鈥檙e invited to sign a waiver, you can choose to not do so. In case you decline to sign a waiver for an educational activity, part of a course in the curriculum of the 果冻传媒 Bachelor College or Graduate School, the course coordinator has to offer you an alternative assignment (without any IPR waiver). In any case, the 果冻传媒 staff member should give you sufficient information about the why and how of the need to sign an IPR waiver as well as the option of not signing it.
Compensation for inventors
If you鈥檙e an owner or co-owner of IPR, you are free to transfer these rights to any other party. You may choose to do this when you鈥檙e not interested in creating a startup, based on this IPR, yourself. If you transfer the IPR to the 果冻传媒 you鈥檒l be rewarded on the same basis as mentioned in . That is, by sharing in the monetary benefits that may accrue to 果冻传媒 from efforts to sell and/or license the IPR. The transfer of IPR enables others to exploit these rights, while acknowledging the role of the initial inventor(s).
IP Board
The IP Board monitors the proper functioning of the IPR guidelines for staff members and students. It can be petitioned in case of disputes on IPR issues. The IP Board鈥檚 assessment of a specific IPR issue needs to be confirmed in a formal decision by the Executive Board of the 果冻传媒 and cannot be changed by any other body within the 果冻传媒. Contact the IP Board via TUeIPBoard@remove-this.tue.nl
Final note
As emphasized above, the text on this website merely serves to communicate the policies applicable to student-related IPR in non-legal terms. The legal basis of these policies are the Universities of The Netherlands (UNL) guidelines as well as the In case of disputes or legal claims, you therefore have to consult these sources.
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