The IP policy, which governs property created by students, faculty, researchers, and staff, sets down legal guidelines for ownership of patents, copyright, and trademarks produced at the Institute that hadn’t been updated since its inception in May, 1988. At the time, it was a national model for the policies created by other universities and colleges, but “it needed updating” said Charles Carletta, secretary of the Institute and general counsel. “The basic concepts are the same, but now it’s more streamlined. It manages all IP the same way no matter what; there is no distinction on what type of IP it is.” He stated that the old policy treated intellectual property in much the same way as the new policy, but the wording in the old policy was very unclear.

Carletta, along with Mark Shephard, a civil engineering professor, headed a task force to revamp the 1988 policy. The process took over a year to complete and included discussions with both faculty and students. As of publication, Grand Marshal Carlos Perea had not had a chance to fully review the policy for comment, but stated that the Student Senate is in the process of looking over the revised policy.

RPI’s policy uses a “significant use” approach. Significant use is specifically defined in the new policy as “any use of Rensselaer personnel or facilities that is not exempted by this Policy, including, but not limited to: space, funds, equipment, facilities or services, employee on-the-job time, laboratories, computers, software, paid student time, (e.g. research assistants, teaching assistants, fellows, students who provide services under sponsor agreements that require Rensselaer ownership), attending, participating in or benefiting from a Rensselaer course, the supervision of a faculty or staff member, confidential information or Rensselaer-owned Intellectual Property, Rensselaer organized software development projects or recordings of presentations of Course Materials.” The use of the residence halls, office space, incubator, and library facilities are exempted as not significant use, as are the use of internet access, data storage, and office computers.

The significant use approach is commonly used by other universities such as MIT, Stanford, and WPI. In contrast, the “field of use” approach used by many companies states that any intellectual property you develop, even without the use of company resources, that is within the field for which you were hired becomes the intellectual property of that company.

While licensing agreements with RPI do include possible fees for commercialization (which can be in either stock or cash-based royalties), 35 percent of those licensing fees go directly back to the creator, and 15 percent go to the department in which the development was created. The remaining 50 percent stays with RPI.

Many students are not thrilled by the prospect of turning over their intellectual property to RPI, but Carletta contends that there is an element of protection afforded by the policy. “If you present a design created for a class, then that design becomes the property of RPI,” said Carletta. “It protects you from another person taking your idea and asserting that it is theirs.” He said that RPI has the resources to litigate to protect those rights if that happens. Without the policy, the true creator may not have the resources to challenge the validity of the thief’s claim. “RPI is in that game and knows how it works,” said Carletta. “By claiming ownership, it helps to stabilize the market.”

Certain exemptions are also applicable to creative works such as textbooks, theses, scholarly publications, journal articles, books, plays, poems, and works of art. In these cases, there is a presumption of ownership by the author as long as the works are not in fulfillment of work-for-hire by the Institute.

The policy espouses the idea that any development which uses a significant use of the Institute’s resources should become the property of that community. Nonetheless, Carletta summed up the Institute’s position on licensing developments, stating that “from RPI’s perspective, if anyone is going to get first dibs on an invention, it’s going to be the creator.” He continued, “RPI is not in the business of commercializing products. That’s what the creators go out and do.”

According to statistics available in the Office of Technology Commercialization’s annual report, 74 inventions were disclosed and 12 patents were issued to members of the RPI community in fiscal year 2006. The overall licensing revenue for that year was $257,000 with approximately $200,000 more being reported from patent reimbursements. The OTC Annual Report and the new IP Policy are available online on the OTC website at: