5.710 Intellectual Property Rights and Policies

Policy Number: 5.710

Purpose

National Park College is committed to excellence in both teaching and learning. This commitment is evidenced by activities and policies that enhance faculty expertise and promote quality programs of study. Policies that protect the intellectual property rights of faculty, staff and students are a necessary extension of and means to these commitments. Education is best experienced within a community of learning where competent professionals are actively and cooperatively involved in creating, providing, and improving the instructional program. 

Through this policy, the College endeavors to create an intellectual environment whereby creative efforts and innovations are encouraged and rewarded, while still retaining for the College and its learning communities reasonable access to, and use of, the intellectual property for whose creation the College has provided support, assistance, or resources.

Scope

This policy applies to all College employees. Moreover, the College may enter into separate written agreements that govern the use and ownership of intellectual property. In such cases, if a term or provision of any such separate agreement conflicts or is inconsistent with any term or provision of this policy, then the separate agreement shall govern and control.

Definitions^[1]

Collective Work:  A work, such as a periodical issue, anthology, or encyclopedia, in which a number of contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole.

Copyright: A form of legal protection provided to the authors of "original works of authorship" including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished, which generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work, to prepare derivative works, to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work, to perform the copyrighted work publicly, or to display the copyrighted work publicly.

Derivative Work: A work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications, which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a “derivative work;” see also, “revision.”

Fair Use: A legal doctrine which permits the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research.  In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use, the factors to be considered shall include—

1.  the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial
2. nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
3. the nature of the copyrighted work;
4. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
5. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Intellectual Property: A creative product of the mind, whether written, artistic, or electronic, which can be protected by law from being copied by another.

Ownership: Legal proprietary right or exclusive title, may reside with one or more entities as in dual ownership.

Patent: A property right excluding others from making, using, offering for sale, selling, or importing an invention.

Public Domain: The status of property rights belonging to the community at large, not protected by copyright or patent, and to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply.

Revenue: Income in the form of salary, dividends, goods, interest, royalties, services, stipends, or return on investments.

Revision: Reworking to the extent that at least 50% of the material is new; see “derivative work”.

Work Made for Hire:

1. a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or
2. a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. For the purpose of the foregoing sentence, a “supplementary work” is a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes, and an “instructional text” is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities.

Ownership Rights - National Park College

The College shall have sole and exclusive ownership rights to College-Owned Intellectual Property.  As such, the College shall have sole authority to exercise all rights available with respect to said property, including selling, licensing, or obtaining legal use protection for its Intellectual Property. Employees shall not sign or enter into any agreement which abrogates the College's rights and interests as stated herein or in any separate agreement.  The College shall own copyright in the following circumstances:

1. The College expressly directs a faculty member to create a specified work, or the work is created as a specific requirement of employment or as an assigned institutional duty that may, for example, be included in a written job description or an employment agreement.
2. The faculty author has voluntarily transferred the copyright, in whole or in part to the College. Such transfer shall be in writing and signed by the faculty author.
3. The College or university has contributed to a "joint work" under the federal Copyright Act. The College can exercise joint ownership under this clause when it has contributed specialized services and facilities to the production of the work that goes beyond what is traditionally provided to faculty members generally in the preparation of their course materials. Such arrangement must be agreed to in advance and in writing.

Ownership Rights – Employees

Except as otherwise provided herein, the following intellectual property created, made, or originated by an employee shall be the sole and exclusive property of said employee, except as he or she may voluntarily choose to transfer such property, in full, or in part:

1. Any Intellectual Property created by an employee that does not fall within one of the following categories:
• Intellectual Property that is patentable (or potentially patentable) or that reasonably could (or potentially could) be used for a commercial purpose.
• Intellectual Property that is specifically directed, commissioned or sponsored by the College.
• Intellectual Property that is more integral to, and reflects more directly on, the identity of the College than on the identity of the individual who creates them.
• Intellectual Property that is created using substantial resources of National Park College.
2. Any Intellectual Property that an employee develops on his or her own time, without using the funds, equipment, supplies, facilities or trade secret information of the College, unless such invention relates at the time of conception to College business or any work performed by the employee for the College.

Use of Intellectual Property

Material created for ordinary teaching use in or during classes and in department programs shall remain the property of the faculty author, but the College shall be permitted to use such material for internal instructional, educational, and administrative purposes, including satisfying requests of accreditation agencies for faculty-authored syllabi and course descriptions.  Examples of such materials include but are not limited to syllabi, assignments, and tests.

In any agreement transferring copyright for such works, faculty authors are urged to seek to provide rights for the College to use such works for internal instructional, educational, and administrative purposes.

Compensation for Sale of Intellectual Property

Compensation received by the faculty member from the sale of intellectual property owned by the faculty author/inventor shall be allocated and expended as determined solely by said faculty author/inventor.

Compensation received by the College from the sale of intellectual property owned by the College will be allocated and expended as determined solely by the College.

Compensation received by the faculty member and the College from the sale of intellectual property owned jointly by the faculty member and the College shall be allocated and expended in accordance with the specific agreement herein provided:

Prior to recovery of the College's costs:

• Creator(s) 25%
• College 75%

After recovery of the College's costs:

• Creator(s) 50%
• College 50%

In the event of multiple creators, the creators will determine in writing the allocation their portion or percentage of compensation when the work is first undertaken.

[1] Definitions per 17 U.S.C §§ 101 and 107