Student Intellectual Property Issues on the Entrepreneurial Campus

Intellectual property questions involving student inventions are increasingly common on campuses where the number of bright and motivated students seeking to become the next Mark Zuckerberg are rising. This article addresses why universities should be paying attention to student intellectual property issues, issues related to identifying the owner of intellectual property in student inventions; managing joint ownership between students and the university; and appropriately managing student interactions with third party sponsors of class projects. Appropriately resolving questions related to intellectual property in student inventions is more important than ever for universities because these questions no longer relate to a mere school project. Rather, these issues shape the foundations of future for-profit ventures. For universities seeking the correct and most reasonable answers to questions involving student intellectual property, the stakes have never been higher