License to take

Tuesday evening, Duke hosted the sixth annual Elevator Pitch Competition of the Duke Start-Up Challenge, a competition in which students pitch business ideas to a panel of judges with the hope of winning the grand prize of $5,000. The event is an affirmation of Duke students’ commitment to entrepreneurship. But the University’s policy on intellectual property demonstrates that its enthusiasm for student entrepreneurship does not match that of the undergraduate population.

Duke’s “Policy on Inventions, Patents, and Technology Transfer” serves as a roadblock for undergraduates seeking to pursue creativity and innovation in science. Under this policy, Duke is the partial owner of student inventions that are created using University resources. The scope of “resources” is ambiguous but certainly ranges from using lab equipment to consulting with a professor.

Yet, the University has not completely turned a blind eye to student’s entrepreneurial inclinations. For instance, the creation of a new entrepreneurial initiative led by former University Trustee Kimberly Jenkins, who now holds the title of senior adviser to the president and provost for innovation and entrepreneurship, indicates administrative support for student entrepreneurs.

Still, Duke has not addressed one of the most obvious barriers to innovation: the patent policy. These regulations contradict the climate of creativity that is evidenced by events like the Start-Up Challenge and the creation of Jenkins’ position—and need to be changed immediately.

Duke students pay well to attend this University. Such payment should imply relatively few restrictions on inventions that students produce using University resources. Students should be able to utilize these resources without the concern that they will lose ownership of inventions created with the assistance of Duke property. There are special cases —if a lab on campus employs a student, it is fair to assume that the resulting work is the property of the University or professor for whom she is researching.

Duke is not unusual in enumerating regulations that govern student inventions on campus. But other universities have more productive policies. For instance, Stanford University’s patent rules lay claim to work done by professors and graduate students, but do not specifically reference the work of undergraduates. In exceptional cases, Stanford’s policy notes that it reserves the right for the president to evaluate cases.

Such a policy trumps Duke’s regulations by providing a good balance of promoting student inventions while concurrently ensuring that, in special cases, the university has the ability to exercise discretion. We trust that in these rare circumstances, universities would act appropriately and fairly.

In the meantime, until the policy is reformed, students should be aware of its existence and recognize that their inventions created at Duke may not be wholly theirs. A situation in which a student retroactively learns of the policy after creating an invention on campus must be prevented.