Intellectual Property & Computer Science

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Intellectual Property & Computer Science

There was an interesting discussion on slashdot today about a university researcher who had been informed that the university holds the copyright to, and consequently owns, any software that the researcher develops during their contract. A complicating factor was that the research project was publicly funded NSERC although according to their policy they allow the university to claim ownership of rights pertaining to the material of the project. So in this case it looks as though the researcher is not in a good position if they want to retain rights to their software. On the surface this seems to be (just about) reasonable, although not a position I wish to ever find myself in, however it appears to put researchers in computing into a difficult situation. One poster sums up the situation very well:

As academics, there is a much greater expectation of being able to continue our research at another institution (universities are not in product competition, but are expected to cooperate -- it's mostly public funding after all). A history researcher can reasonably expect to continue his history research if he moves post or goes on sabbatical. As can a social scientist. For a computing researcher (or for microbiologists), however, the IP of the written code becomes a complicating factor. If one university claims copyright, but the only researcher involved moves to another university, it could completely stymie any research progress.

In many other academic research disciplines I could pack up my kit and continue my research at another university. If I were researching argumentation theory in a philosophy department then I could could move to another university and take my research with me. Because I produce software as a by-product of my research, and because another entity could claim ownership of that research, or at least parts of it, I would likely be hindered in immediately picking up from where I left off. This is mostly a thought exercise but I do wonder how this would affect me. I certainly would not be able to continue my research from where I left off if I could not take my software with me because the software I write, although useful to others, is primarily written as a tool for my own use.

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