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Who owns faculty-generated intellectual property?
November 15, 2005 by Ross Runkel at LawMemo
The university? The faculty member? Or is it negotiable?
After Pittsburg State University (Kansas) proposed a policy that said the university would own any intellectual property created by its faculty members, the faculty union said the whole thing should be negotiated as a matter of collective bargaining.
The university asserted that it had no duty to negotiate, and thus had the right to adopt whatever policy it wanted without discussions with the union.
The university had a bunch of reasons to support its position:
- Federal law preempts the subject of ownership of IP rights.
- State law preempts the subject of ownership of IP rights.
- IP ownership is a "management prerogative under state collective bargaining law.
- Bottom line: No requirement to negotiate.
Enter the Kansas Supreme Court. Pittsburg State University v. Kansas Board of Regents (Kanasas 11/10/2005).
The court noted that state statute requires the university to negotiate
salaries, wages, hours of work, vacation allowances, sick and injury leave, number of holidays, retirement benefits, insurance benefits, prepaid legal service benefits, wearing apparel, premium pay for overtime, shift differential pay, jury duty and grievance procedures.
And that is not an exclusive, narrow list. Negotiation is also required if a subject is "significantly related" to the above list.
The court decided that --
- Neither state nor federal law preempted the subject.
- The case had to be remanded for a more detailed examination of issues which the Public Employee Relations Board had not bothered to address:
- the "significantly related" concept
- whether it is a "management prerogative."
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