Revised IP policy
Comments from NTEU Members sent to ANU
Dear Ron
thank you for the opportunity to provide further comment. Please see below comments received from members, some of which I understand have been sent to you directly. In addition to these comments it has been suggested that the university should circulate a plain english summary of the differences between the existing and the proposed policies.
sincerely
Peter
Comments from Members
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9.1 change "employeees" to "employees"
9.4a should stipulate that the university does not have the right to on-licence use of the course material
9.5 If this were adopted by several universities, and the employee moved between them, this would create a nightmare of recurrent licensing issues. The university's rights should therefore cease after some period.
10 Employees are directed to a copy of the IP policy when they commence. It should be codified here that visitors should also be made aware of the restrictions on IP. This of course could generate a huge amount of work if both parties, visitor and host, felt compelled by 10 to formally identify their background IP before entering into any collaboration.
11 In referring to graduate students this does not cover examples such as PhB students or Honours students who may well undertake research as part of their undergraduate degree, who in some cases do 24 units of research. I had an Honours student who published 5 papers from their thesis. Similarly for Section 12.
13 does not cover "not for profit" companies which nevertheless might intend to commercialize IP with the intention of enriching the founders/managers of the company through means such as excessive wages, bonuses, travel allowances etc.
16.1 does not cover commercialisation by the university and a member or their nominee together
16.4 does not indicate that the property on being abandoned would default to the creator as the current policy does
17.3 does not indicate any policy on the use of the income flowing to the College in respect of a proportion flowing to the area of the creator or their institute within the College. Currently different practices exist in different institution across campus and this can cause problems if the staff member moves around the university.
17.4 It is not indicated whether "(c) the contribution of background intellectual property by an originator;" would increase or decrease the amount going to the creator(s)
17.5 What is the definition of "close family", does it include cousins, same sex partners, defacto spouses? The ATO has something to say about this as well. For example if party A invented something, even A requests that some of the income derived go to their spouse, the ATO would not recognise this income splitting and so the inventor would be taxed based on their income including all of the income of the invention. So one wonders why anyone would want to attempt this. On the other hand if siblings or spouses invented something jointly, why should they be treated any differently than any other pair of joint inventors, surely this is prejudicial.
Intellectual Property should include the newest TRIPS recognised form "Appellations"
Knowledge (u) should read "biological varieties arising from genetic orepi-genetic modification or breeding"
Member (b) should be changed from post-graduate student, to "students conducting research under supervision by an employee or visitor", to cover the case of Honours, PhB and related courses where research with a supervisor is a component. Section 11 should be modified accordingly
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I think the main issue of interest to most members is that the present (and former) IP policy, under which many of us were hired, stated that in the case that the ANU did not want to pursue commercialisation of IP that it was automatically offer on a first refusal basis to the inventor(s).
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reading through this sub-section on Benefits of commercialisation
17.3 Sharing of benefits shall be based on the following distribution.
Distribution
University
33.3%, or such lesser percentage as determined by the Vice Chancellor on written request of the originators for a greater percentage distribution to be made to the originators
College
33.3%
Originators
Subject to Section 17.5, 33.3%, or such greater percentage as determined by the Vice Chancellor on written request of the originators for a greater percentage distribution to be made to the originators
it strikes me that the distribution to the College of 33.3% should be modified (in a similar way to the qualification on the university's distribution) so that originators can request that less than this amount can be distributed to the College.
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I would suggest one addition:-
Section 24. Glossary
Intellectual Property includes all forms of intellectual property rights (in any jurisdiction) whether arising under legislation or general law including (without limitation) all rights resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, commercial, literary or artistic fields, including the right to apply for registration of such rights, and includes all rights in relation to:
(a) concepts;
(b) know-how;
(c) processes;
(d) products;
(e) data;
(f) circuit layouts;
(g) copyright and neighbouring rights;
(h) confidential information;
(i) designs;
(j) inventions;
(k) patents;
(l) plant varieties;
(m) plant breeder's rights;
(n) trade marks and trade secrets,
(o) Software/programs
With such an extensive list Software must be included, software is include below this oddly as a Scholarly Work at (b) but not included at Intellectual Property.
And a typo
Section 25. Transitional Provisions
25.1 This Policy does not apply to:
(b) any publication which was submitted for peer review prior to prior to the Commencement Date;
duplication of the words 'prior to' .
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1. If the university believes this is the kind of policy that will allow it to attract and retain the best there should be a link to it on the ANU home page - clearly visible - so that any prospective academic or student can read it before deciding to come here.
2. The present policy states that the teaching materials we have put up on the Web in one form or another remain our IP. Previously it was our choice as to whether we used webct, recorded our lectures, etc.; now we are compelled to do so. Concurrent with the introduction of any new policy in respect of teaching materials we should be given the option -
in accord with the present policy - to have removed from all university repositories all copies of material we currently have available.
3. The basic problem is there seems to be little appreciation of what goes into any significant contribution on the part of an academic. As simple examples, any serious academic more often than not works nights (though not necessarily every night), works weekends, has no long weekend holidays to speak of (at the very least having to use monday to prepare for the week's lectures), and more often than not does not have any real annual leave. In the end serious academics lose months of salary by being forced to take long service leave during times when they are continuing with their research. Of course, all of this is after years of lost income while getting a PhD (or equivalent).
The important thing, in terms of protecting the ANU's reputation, is to be up front about this ... so that academics and students know what kind of institution they might be considering coming to ... hence placing the policy prominently on the homepage.
Finally, if the policy was more motivational and less income orientated, it might well lead to not only a higher ranking in the league tables for us, but also - counter-intuitively - more income.