Intellectual propertyÜa benefit to our faculty, staff and students

RIT recently held the Principal Investigators Reception to recognize the growing number of RIT faculty and staff who have obtained grants and contracts. The level of sponsored funding flowing in to RIT has increased dramatically, from $5 million in 1997 to more than $26 million in 2001.

Research advances the state of knowledge, students gain valuable experience, presentations are made on the results, articles are published in journals and often times intellectual property is generated.

In this Viewpoints, I will focus on the intellectual property that's being generated by research at RIT and how the university, its faculty and staff benefit from it.

First, what is intellectual property? Intellectual property is knowledge that has value and can be protected by various legal methods, including patents, copyright, trademarks, mask works and trade secrets. The legal forms of protection themselves add value to the intellectual property.

RIT is interested in leveraging its intellectual property to enhance the educational experience; to recruit, reward and retain faculty, staff and students; to promote university-industry-government collaborations; to provide funds for research and new program development; and to foster regional economic development.

As a PI, what can you do to help RIT best use its intellectual property? First, make sure whenever we enter into a grant or contract that involves research that RIT, and you, will end up with the rights to use the output of that research and to work with other organizations of your choosing to build on that research. Second, recognize when you've developed something of value and take the necessary steps to get the appropriate intellectual property protection for that knowledge.

Why are grant and contract terms so important to you as a PI? Research money is usually not free. By this, I mean that the funding organization typically wants something in exchange for giving the university money to do research. What the sponsor wants and what RIT agrees to can impact your future research direction.

Who owns the output from your research projects? It depends on the terms in your grant or contract. Remember, what is negotiated is what you will need to live by going forward. You don't want to accept contract terms today and then find yourself blocked from doing future research and accepting other contracts. Talk with the person in GCIP who is helping you put the grant or contract in place to ensure it preserves the research freedom and flexibility that you and RIT need.

Managing research resultsÜYou've just invented something. Now what should you do? Publish it? Patent it? As a member of the academic community, you probably will want to publish. Does this mean you cannot patent your invention?

Inventions can be published and patented. It's simply a matter of planning ahead so the timing of when you make a public disclosure syncs with the patent-filing timeline.

Why patent your invention? Patents enhance the value of inventions and this has many benefits: