University of Tasmania, Australia

Intellectual Property that you have created could be owned by you, or jointly with other creators, depending on the circumstances of its creation. It could also be owned by the University or another person or entity.
There are a number of ways in which employee-created intellectual property might be assigned to the University, including:

• The intellectual property is created in the course of the employee’s employment duties and assigned to the University by statute or implication of law (but note that in each case this will depend on what the employee is employed to do);

• The employee’s employment contract contains a clause which assigns certain intellectual property created by the employee to the University; or

• Employees may execute a Deed of Assignment or contract where they assign intellectual property.

Please note that the University’s Intellectual Property Ordinance does not automatically assign any intellectual property.

Benefits of assigning IP to the University

Benefits of assigning intellectual property to the University might include:

• enabling the University to accept research funding, where it is a condition of the funding that the University owns the project intellectual property;

• greater certainty about ownership (particularly where there are several potential employee owners who all assign intellectual property to the University);

• access to the University’s commercialisation services (including the University’s acceptance of the risk of making a loss as a result of its payment of commercialisation costs); and

• a share of commercialisation revenue.

Intellectual Property that you have created could be owned by you, or jointly with other creators, depending on the circumstances of its creation. It could also be owned by the University or another person or entity.

The University will usually only own intellectual property created by a non-employee where that person has assigned that intellectual property to the University in the form of a Deed of Assignment or another form of agreement with the University.

You may also create intellectual property jointly with another person or entity, in which case, you might be a joint owner of that intellectual property.

Assigning IP to the University

The University’s Intellectual Property Ordinance does not automatically assign any intellectual property. The University may request that a non-employee assign or licence their intellectual property to the University where:

• It is a requirement of a third party which is funding or facilitating the research or consultancy in which the non-employee is or will become involved in; or

• The University proposes to commercialise the particular intellectual property.

Benefits of assigning IP to the University

Benefits of assigning intellectual property to the University might include:

• Enabling the University to accept research funding, where it is a condition of the funding that the University owns the project intellectual property;

• Greater certainty about ownership (particularly where there are several potential employee owners who all assign intellectual property to the University);

• Access to the University’s commercialisation services (including the University’s acceptance of the risk of making a loss as a result of its payment of commercialisation costs);

• A share of commercialisation revenue.

Non-Employees include non-employees with discretionary titles such as an Honorary Appointee and other non-employee appointees as listed in the Discretionary Titles Policy.

Where a non-employee does not agree to sign a Deed of Assignment, the University may not be able to guarantee that the non-employee will be able to be involved in the relevant research project or consultancy.

Intellectual Property that you have created could be owned by you, or jointly with other creators, depending on the circumstances of its creation. It could also be owned by the University or another person or entity.

For example, you may also create intellectual property jointly with your supervisor or another University employee, in which case, you might be a joint owner of that intellectual property.

The University will usually only own intellectual property created by a student where that person has assigned the intellectual property to the University in the form of a Deed of Assignment or another form of agreement with the University (for example, a scholarship agreement).

Assigning IP to the University

Please note that the University’s Intellectual Property Ordinance does not automatically assign any intellectual property. The University may request that a student assign or licence their intellectual property to the University where:

• It is a requirement of a third party which is funding or facilitating the research project in which the student is or will become involved in; or

• It is a requirement of a scholarship; or

• The University proposes to commercialise the intellectual property

Where a student does not agree to sign a Deed of Assignment, the University may not be able to guarantee that the student will be able to receive a scholarship grant or be involved in the relevant research project.

Benefits of assigning IP to the University

Benefits of assigning intellectual property to the University might include:

• Being able to participate in a research project or accept a scholarship;greater certainty about ownership (particularly where there are several potential owners who all assign intellectual property to the University);

• Access to the University’s commercialisation services (including the University’s acceptance of the risk of making a loss as a result of its payment of commercialisation costs);

• A share of commercialisation revenue.