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Preamble
The University of West Alabama believes in creating an intellectual environment whereby creative efforts and innovations are encouraged and rewarded. Based on this assumption, the University of West Alabama supports the development, production, and dissemination of intellectual property by its faculty, staff and students.
What is Intellectual Property?
Intellectual Property is a form of property that includes copyrights and patents.
Copyrights shall be understood to mean "that bundle of rights that protect original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." Works of authorship include, but are not limited to, literary works; musical works including any accompanying words; dramatic works including any accompanying music; pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works (photographs, prints, diagrams, models, and technical drawings); motion pictures and other audiovisual works; sound recordings; and architectural work. Tangible media include, but are not limited to, books, periodicals, manuscripts, phonorecords, films, tapes, and disks.
Patent shall be understood to mean "that bundle of rights that protect inventions or discoveries which constitute any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof."
Note: Computer programs fall into a gray area between copyrights and patents. Computer programs that are part of a "new and useful process" may be eligible for patent protection, while programs embodying minimally original expression may be eligible for copyright protection.
Distance learning/technology-based courses are addressed in a separate policy.
Who owns the Intellectual Property?
The faculty, staff or student who creates, makes, or originates the Intellectual Property shall have sole and exclusive ownership of the property unless one of the following three situations occurs:
1. The University expressly directed the faculty, staff or student to create a specific work.
2. The faculty, staff or student voluntarily transfers the copyright, in whole or in part, to the University.
3. The University contributed specialized services or facilities to the faculty, staff or student that go beyond what is normally provided. In these cases, a Joint Work Agreement shall be negotiated in writing before the Intellectual Property is created.
Who may use the Intellectual Property?
Any material created by faculty, staff or student for ordinary teaching use in the classroom or in department programs, while the property of the faculty, staff or student who created it, shall be made available to the University for internal instructional, educational, and administrative purposes. Furthermore, if a faculty or staff member or student transfers copyrights of this material to a publisher, he or she shall provide rights in the agreement for University internal instructional, educational, or administrative purposes.
Any other material created and owned jointly between the faculty or staff member or student and the University shall be made available to the University as stipulated in the Joint Work Agreement.
How are any funds to be distributed?
1. Any funds received by faculty, staff or student for the sale of Intellectual Property owned solely by the faculty, staff or student shall be allocated and expended as determined by the faculty, staff or student author or inventor.
2. Any funds received by the University for the sale of Intellectual Property owned solely by the University shall be allocated as follows: a minimum of 30% to be allocated to the faculty, staff or student author or inventor and the remaining 70% to the University.
3. Funds received from the sale of Intellectual Property owned jointly by the faculty, staff or student author or inventor and the University shall be allocated and expended in accordance with the Joint Work Agreement negotiated between the two parties at the beginning of the creation of the Intellectual Property.
How are emerging issues and disputes resolved?
The Research Oversight Committee shall be responsible for overseeing the Intellectual Property policy and for resolving disputes by:
1. monitoring technological and legislative changes affecting intellectual property policy;
2. providing recommendations for changes to the current Intellectual Property policy;
3. deciding disputes over ownership of intellectual property;
4. resolving competing faculty, staff or student claims to ownership when the parties involved cannot reach an agreement on their own;
5. reviewing merits of inventions and making recommendations for the management of the invention, including development, patenting, and exploitation.
Denials from the Research Oversight Committee may be appealed through the University's General Grievance Procedure.
(Approved by the Faculty Senate January 15, 2000; Approved by the Deans' Council September 28, 2001; Revised December 7, 2012)
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