Who Owns the Intellectual Property Rights in Academic Work?

Abstract

In this Opinion piece the ownership of intellectual property rights in university teaching and research is considered against the backdrop of British university intellectual property policies and recent cases. Starting from the position of Lord Evershed that it is "just and commonsense" that academics own the copyright in their lectures, and by extension the copyright in their research, I consider the policy arguments for university claims of ownership in respect of such copyright and academic employees' inventions.

Keywords: Intellectual Property, Ownership, Copyright, Patents, Inventions, Universities, Academics, Employees