Undergraduate involvement in intellectual property protection at universities: views from technology transfer professionals

• Autores: Nathalie Duval-Couetil, Jessamine Pilcher, Phil Weilerstein, Chad Gotch
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 30, no. Extra 1, 2014, págs. 60-71
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Undergraduate students are increasingly engaged in developing products and technologies that are commercially viable outside ofthe university through their involvement in courses and experiential programs focused on product design and entrepreneurship. Theinvolvement of undergraduates in intellectual property protection leads to interesting questions related to how best to align studentinterests with institutional policies and practices since most are not employed by their universities in the way that faculty and manygraduate students are. This paper summarizes the results of a survey designed to examine trends in the level and nature ofundergraduate involvement in creating intellectual property. It was administered to intellectual property professionals in technologytransfer offices at 30 U.S. universities with strong emphases in engineering, science, and technology. Findings indicate thatinvolvement in intellectual property protection among undergraduates is growing at over half of the institutions surveyed; there is alack of consensus among institutions of how to manage IP generated by undergraduates; and that the resources technology transferoffices have to devote to communicating policy is critical to the manner in which policy is applied.