As a student, your ideas, research or projects may result in valuable Intellectual Property (IP). Here’s how to know who owns the IP, as well as how and when to protect it and what support is available to help you.
What is intellectual property?
Intellectual property, or IP, describes creations of the mind that can be legally owned and protected.
Your IP can include the subject matter, methods and tools you create as part of your studies or research.
Examples include:
- Literary, artistic, musical and dramatic works
- Field and laboratory notebooks
- Cinematographic and multimedia works
- Performances of performing artists, sound recordings and broadcast
- Patentable and non-patentable inventions
- Registered and unregistered designs, plant varieties and topographies
- Circuit layouts
- Registered and unregistered trademarks, service marks and commercial names and designations
- Other databases, computer software and related material
- Scientific discoveries
- Know-how and other proprietary information.
Who owns IP?
IP ownership depends on the type of IP, the relationship its creators hold with the University, the existence of any legal agreements in which IP ownership is specifically defined and the University Statute.
The University encourages an entrepreneurial culture and shares any profits from commercialising IP between all IP creators.
Student intellectual property
As a student, the University does not own any IP you solely create, unless it relates to teaching material or under a “specified agreement”.
The University owns the IP created if you are involved in an activity that is governed in some way by a third-party agreement or “specified agreement”. A specified agreement can include research contracts, studentship agreements and funding agreements.
If the IP you create is co-created with another person (for instance, your supervisor) or is reliant on background IP (from the University) then the University may also have an interest in the IP.
Graduate researchers work on IP created under various circumstances. While a graduate researcher may be the sole creator of IP, given the collaborative nature of research, this needs to be assessed and clarified. For graduate researchers, it is often the case that your supervisor is a co-creator.
Ownership of IP you create or co-create also depends on:
- If you are also employed by the University
- The terms of any relevant agreement that you or the University have signed.
Using third-party Intellectual Property
Before using IP owned by an external party, including collaborators, in a research project or in developing a software or multimedia product, for example, the University may need to have that party's permission.
As a researcher you must document the date and conditions of use of all third-party IP so we can help you determine if its use affects the ownership of any IP you create.
How to protect your IP
If you’ve come up with a unique or novel idea or solution that has the potential to make impact or be commercialised, then it could be IP worth protecting.
Different types of IP can be protected in different ways.
Patents
The most formal registration process to acknowledge your creative intellectual property is with a patent. A patent is a right that is granted by a government “for any device, substance, method, or process, that is new inventive and useful".
Know-how
Know-how is valuable practical knowledge, specific technical skills and experience that one party has developed and has treated confidentially, and often not even written down.
Trade Secrets
Trade Secrets refer to confidential and valuable technical information like experimental techniques, results, recipes, formulas and processes, or operational information like research strategy, customer databases and competitor analysis. Trade secrets can be shared under the protection of a Confidential Disclosure Agreement, or converted to another type of intellectual property, like a patent or copyright.
Copyright
Copyright protects the way ideas are expressed, and ls created when a work is fixed into its final form, like software, a book, a play, or a piece of music. It does not protect the underlying idea being expressed. Copyright protection is automatic in Australia.
Registered Design
While a patent protects the way something works, a Registered Design protects the way a product looks. A design may consist of three-dimensional features, like the shape of an article, or two-dimensional features including patterns, lines or colour.
Plant Breeders Rights
Plant Breeders Rights are exclusive commercial rights protecting new varieties of plants, like tastier strawberries or more vibrant rose flowers.
Trademarks
Trademarks are a badge of origin, a unique way of identifying products and services offered by different businesses and organisations, as the products and services may not be unique. They can give protection for a letter, number, word, phrase, sound, smell, shape, logo, picture or a movement.
If you’ve come up with a unique or novel idea or solution that has the potential to make impact or be commercialised, then it could be IP worth protecting.
Contact us
Understanding IP and how to protect it can be complex.
The University’s Knowledge and Technology Transfer team can answer any questions you have.
First published on 7 March 2023.
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