Know your rights and responsibilities as creators of intellectual property

It is important as a graduate student to be aware of your rights and responsibilities with respect to the intellectual property that you create or co-create.

It is very important that you meet with your advisor to have an open discussion about your advisor’s expectations and practices around authorship and other intellectual property issues. This conversation should take place early in your program and certainly before the start of a research project.

There are a number of resources and services that are available to assist you to understand your rights and responsibilities pertaining to IP. The Canadian Association for Graduate Studies has published a valuable guide to intellectual property . This document is a great primer on intellectual property, and provides information on authorship, copyright, and dispute resolution issues.

It is very important to consider intellectual property issues within the context of the University of Manitoba policies. The University of Manitoba has a collection of policies on Research Ethics with which you should become familiar.

In addition to these policies, it is important to recognize that intellectual property questions or issues ought to be considered within a larger context including:

• the conventions of the discipline
• your department’s supplemental regulations or unwritten practices
• your advisor’s expectations
• the external stakeholders requirements (external funding agency)

Keep in mind that your rights might change given your role, for example, student versus paid employee.

The Technology Transfer Office provides intellectual property asset services to researchers and inventors at the University of Manitoba. The office is a clearinghouse for information and assistance related to intellectual property questions and issues.

For questions about copyright, patents or inventions please consult the University of Manitoba's Patents and Copyright bylaw.

Authorship

As a graduate student you should speak to your advisor about his/her practice on authorship and authorship order. This conversation is particularly important for graduate students involved in collaborative research projects wherein there are overlaps between graduate students' or other researchers' works. Also consult your department’s supplemental regulations to determine if there are any guidelines about authorship.

The University of Manitoba provides advice on authorship within the policy entitled Guidelines on Responsibilities for Research Ethics.

Faculty members should ensure that any person who has substantially contributed academically to the study being reported in a publication either in the conception or design, execution of the experimental work, interpretation of data or drafting the article is included as an author or is given other appropriate acknowledgement. Anyone accepting authorship accepts responsibility for the validity of the whole manuscript. It is suggested that each department define a set of criteria for authorship and that this be attached to the departmental supplementary regulations for graduate studies. With regard to the special situation of publications arising from multi-investigator teams, the following general guidelines have been adapted from those of Stanford University (1989):

1. The principal investigators from each laboratory listed on the publication must ensure the overall validity of the publication.
2. All authors share the responsibility for the publication and should have the opportunity to review all procedures and data used in preparing the publication.
3. Each author should know a paper is being prepared, should have access to the manuscript prior to its submission for publication and should agree to being listed as a co-author.
4. Early in the project, each research group should define the procedures for maintaining data.

Dispute Resolution

Should you have any issues or concerns about your intellectual property rights, try to resolve the matter first with your advisor.

Before proceeding, you might want to talk to a third party who can listen to the issue and provide advice. The Student Advocacy office is a confidential service and we are able to assist you at any point in your academic program. A Student Advocate can map out options, refer you to relevant policies and services, and assist in the resolution of the conflict.

The graduate chair of your department might be of help in resolving disputes. Other sources of support include:

The Faculty of Graduate Studies

The Technology Transfer Office