What is intellectual property?
Intellectual Property (IP) is a collective name for a set of legally enforceable interests which confer on their owners the exclusive right to use inventions and fixed expressions of ideas. There are many different types of IP. Common types of IP in the University context include inventions and know-how, software, databases, code, design, logos or literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works.
Why is the University's IP Policy important?
Many of the activities that take place within the University involve the generation of new knowledge and this has the potential to make a difference in the world.
The IP Policy sets out the University’s position regarding the ownership, use and protection of intellectual property (IP) developed by colleagues, students and certain others. The Policy also outlines the procedures in place for the commercialisation of University IP and the revenue sharing process that applies to staff and student inventors in such cases.
How does it affect me (students)?
Generally, students own any IP they generate or create during their studies at the University. There are some exceptions to this that are outlined in more detail in the IP policy. For example, where the student holds a sponsored studentship or is involved in a project with a third-party organisation with specific terms and conditions for ownership of IP, or where IP is generated in collaboration with a staff member and has clear commercial potential.
For undergraduate and post-graduate taught students, as part of your course, you may be required to complete a work-based or placement learning experience. This experience could be via business challenges, hackathons, live briefs, or employer projects that require the creation of outputs in the form of business solutions, webpages or research outputs, for example.
Usually, all outcomes of the WBPL Project(s), including research findings, will be owned by the party who created them (or jointly owned if created jointly), unless, agreed otherwise in writing.
Undergraduate and postgraduate taught students will only be required to assign their IP in exceptional circumstances as detailed in the IP policy. However, where a client/employer owns the IP for a specific project, there may be a requirement for University of Westminster students to sign an agreement with the employer, assigning their IP, generated from the project, to that effect. Students will be notified of this requirement via Blackboard, if this is applicable to their course.
Where a student assigns an IP to the University and the University commercialises that IP, the student shall be entitled to a share of the profits made by the University from that IP. The student’s share of the profit shall be calculated based on the same formula used to remunerate staff-inventors.
Electronic submission and intellectual property
Students may be required to submit coursework electronically for textual similarity review to iParadigms (Turnitin UK) or Safeassign for the detection of plagiarism. Electronically submitted coursework will be made available on University systems for the purpose of marking, assessment and quality assurance and all submitted coursework to iParadigms or Safeassign will be included as source documents in the iParadigms or Safeassign reference databases solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. Use of the Turnitin UK or Safeassign services shall be subject to such Terms and Conditions of Use as may be agreed between iParadigms and Blackboard (respectively) and the University of Westminster from time to time and posted on the Turnitin UK or Blackboard websites. For any other use of submitted papers, current University of Westminster Intellectual Property policy applies.
The University of Westminster's IP policy
The University's IP policy is available below.
Further information
If you would like more information, please contact: [email protected].