PrepTest 116 - Section 1 - Passage 4 - Question 25

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Faculty researchers, particularly in scientific, engineering, and medical programs, often produce scientific discoveries and invent products or processes that have potential commercial value. ████ ████████████ ████ ████████ ███████ ██ ███ ██████████████ ██████████████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████ █████ ████████████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ██ █████████ █████ ██ ████████ ███████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████ █████████ █████ ███████████ ██████ ██████████ ██████████ █████████████ ███

Context · Faculty researchers produce discoveries with commercial value

Universities can profit by licensing those discoveries

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Problem · Financially tempting for faculty to leave university and work for startup

If universities don't incentivize their faculty correctly, that is.

Solution · Reconsider universities IP policies to give faculty the right level of flexibility to profit from their inventions

So, is the issue that the universities are hoarding all the profit upside? I suppose if I made a huge biotech discovery, I wouldn't be too happy if my university didn't share the profit with me.

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Classification of IP Policies · 4 types

This is based on Patricia Chew's scholarship.

Type 1 · Supramaximalist

Everything belongs to the university. Even discoveries made while not at work.

Type 2 · Maximalist

Everything belongs to the university, except inventions unconnected to their employment.

Type 3 · Significant use

If "significant use" of university time and facilities involved, then university owns IP.

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Commentary · University ownership is the rule, faculty ownership is the exception

Chew and others note that this is actually contrary to what common law assumes, which is that as a rule faculty own IP. Author claims most universities are taking advantage of their faculty when maximizing ownership and profit rights.

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Type 4 (Solution) · Faculty-oriented

Faculty ownership is the rule, university ownership is the exception.

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Single position

25.

The passage suggests that the ████ ██ ███████████ ██ █████ █████████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ███ ████ ███████████ █████ ███ ████ █████ ████████████ ████████ ██ ███

Question Type

Stated

Note that we’re looking for the institution where faculty have the least certainty about ownership—not where faculty simply have the least ownership. (It’s possible to be certain that you have no ownership.) The rules around when faculty do and don’t have ownership are fairly clear except for one category of institution: resource-providers. These institutions own faculty IP whenever the faculty has made “significant use” of the institution’s resources. But the author points out that “significant use” isn’t really defined—it’s just left up to the institution to say what counts as “significant use” in any given case. Since ownership can change from one invention to the next based purely on the institution’s discretion, faculty at these institutions don’t have a lot of certainty around ownership.

commercial firm

Unsupported. The ownership rules of commercial firms aren’t discussed.

supramaximalist university

Anti-supported. The rules around who owns what are clear at these universities: the university owns all of their faculty’s IP. So the faculty shouldn’t have any uncertainty.

maximalist university

Anti-supported. The rules around who owns what are clear at these universities: if faculty invent something that’s in some way associated with university, the IP belongs to the university. Otherwise, the IP belongs to the faculty. So the faculty shouldn’t have any uncertainty.

resource-provider university

Strongly supported. The rule is that these institutions own faculty IP whenever the faculty has made “significant use” of the institution’s resources. But “significant use” isn’t really defined—it’s just left up to the institution to say what counts as “significant use” in any given case. Since ownership can change from one invention to the next based purely on the institution’s discretion, faculty at these institutions don’t have a lot of certainty around ownership.

76%

faculty-oriented university

Anti-supported. The rules around who owns what are clear at these universities: faculty own their IP except for public health inventions or when there’s previously specified “substantial university involvement.” (What exactly counts as “substantial involvement” sounds like it could involve some uncertainty, but the fact that it’s communicated in advance should give more certainty to faculty about whether the university will own their IP.)

PrepTest 116 - Section 1 - Passage 4 - Question 25

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