Intellectual Property Policies: Effects on Senior Design Capstone Courses

1. Intellectual Property Policies:Effects on Senior Design Capstone Courses Gary H. Brandenburger, D.Sc. Director Entrepreneurial & MBA/MS-BME Programs Adjunct Professor Biomedical Engineering Chih-Mao Hsieh, PhD Monami Chakrabarti, BA, MA Stuart Rosenberg, BS, MS

2. Our Goals for Senior Design Course Improvement • Better prepare students for actual engineering practice and first job in industry • Teach and encourage entrepreneurism • Improve students’ employability • Exceed ABET requirements

3. 3 Simple Hypotheses • Involving students in intellectual property issues and activities is vital to experiencing the design process • Real-life engineering projects from industry provide some of the most valuable design course experiences • Many (most?) of the valuable real-life engineering projects are intertwined with issues of intellectual property

4. Real-life engineering projects are intertwined with issues of intellectual property Corporate IP Policies Existing Inventions New Inventions Best Projects Market Research Trade Secrets Intellectual Property

5. Can of Worms… Best Projects + University Policy = Intellectual Property

6. Pilot Study Design • Survey leading colleges and universities • Poll senior design instructors • Assess multiple departments at some schools • Use standardized questionnaire administered by phone

7. What We’ll Discuss Today • Initial phase of survey data collection done • Focus on subset of questions • Highlights of preliminary results • Possible conclusions

8. University IP Policy Issues • Are undergraduate students allowed to: • sign confidentiality agreements? • sign agreements assigning IP rights? • own IP they invent without faculty co-invention? • sign IP agreements with the faculty or industry sponsors of their design project?

9. University IP Policy Issues • Industry sponsored design projects: • Does university assert ownership of IP created as part of the design project? • What limits does the University place on confidentiality? • Should faculty contribute to potentially patentable inventions or avoid involvement?

10. Preliminary Results • Interviewed 48 instructors at 28 universities • All instructors very supportive of study • Universal interest in seeing results • Study touched on numerous “hot buttons”

11. “Hot Buttons” • Nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) • Allow/Offer/Promote industry sponsored projects? • Encourage students to create patentable inventions? • Who owns the patent rights? • and many more…

12. Nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) • Totals from interviews • 21 courses at 16 universities actively use NDAs • 2 Universities prohibit NDAs (Not universally enforced) • 4 Instructors discourage NDAs • 3 Instructors don't know university NDA policy • 8 courses at 7 universities allow but do not need • 3 courses at 2 universities allow but rarely need • Informal poll: >15 other universities use NDAs

13. Industry sponsored projects? • 5 courses at 4 universities have ONLY industry sponsored projects • 15 courses at 13 universities have 1/3 or more projects from industry sponsors • 13 courses at 11 universities have a mix of industry and other sponsored projects • 2 courses at 2 universities have a small but growing number of industry sponsored projects • 11 courses at 10 universities allow industry and/or students to retain all IP rights

14. Industry sponsored projects or not? • 7 courses at 7 universities handle IP rights on a case by case basis • 5 courses at 4 universities have few projects from industry sponsors • 8 courses at 5 universities have NO industry sponsored projects • 14 courses at 11 universities: • no IP has resulted from company sponsored projects yet or • instructors don’t know who would have IP rights if it did • 4 universities retain all IP rights for industry sponsored projects

15. What Instructors Tell Us • They promote industry sponsored projects because this offers students: • Most realistic, challenging design experience • Protected environment to learn • Opportunity to interact with industry design teams • Industry-standard design review and feedback • Teaches students how to deal with IP and to negotiate with company • Increased likelihood of job with industry sponsors after graduate • Advantage in seeking the best jobs after graduation

16. What Instructors Tell Us • They promote industry sponsored projects because this offers students: • Most realistic, challenging design experience • Protected environment to learn • Opportunity to interact with industry design teams • Industry-standard design review and feedback • Teaches students how to deal with IP and to negotiate with company • Increased likelihood of job with industry sponsors after graduate • Advantage in seeking the best jobs after graduation Students Just Prefer It!

17. What Instructors Tell Us • They disallow or limit the number of industry sponsored projects because: • NDAs prohibited or discouraged • Vague or ambiguous university IP policy • Too difficult or time consuming due to • lack of legal and logistic support • no standard contracts, must negotiate each anew • university takes too long to negotiate & approve contracts • need to cultivate & maintain industry relationships • Just don’t believe in industry sponsored projects • Fear dealing with possible inventions

18. Wave of the Future: Multi-Disciplinary Capstone Courses • Offered at three universities • Two support teams with students from all engineering departments • One offers cross-campus design teams • Students experience diverse teams • business, management, legal, marketing, art , social work and other engineering disciplines • like actual product development teams in industry

19. Wave of the Future: Multi-Semester Capstone Courses • Optional first or optional second semester • Sequence of courses starting in freshman, sophomore or junior years • Time and opportunity to construct prototypes

20. Wave of the Future: Industry Sponsor Financial Support • Grant or fee to cover • team’s actual expenses • team’s use of university facilities • Support ranges from $500 - $50K per project • May or may not be tied to specific project

21. Advantages of Industry Sponsor Financial Support • Basis for university waiving IP rights • Sufficient funds to cover team’s prototyping expenses • At some universities underwrites senior design facility with: • Support staff and technicians • Industry relations staff • Manufacturing • Machine shop • Electronics lab • CAD facility

22. Stay Tuned for Further Developments! • Decide whether to interview additional instructors and universities • Complete study and data analyses • Send white paper to participating instructors, request updated information • Submit journal article

24. What interdisciplinary work is done? How do students collaborate with people in other fields? • Who submits ideas for design projects? (Check all that apply) • Students generate their own ideas • Faculty who are involved with determining the students’ grades • Other Faculty or researchers or university employee inventors who do influence the grade • Other Faculty or researchers or university employee inventors not involved with grading • Industry partners who have an ongoing collaboration on the design course (multiple projects over multiple years) • Industry-initiated university project that gets included in design course (occasional project) • Other: • Don’t know

25. What interdisciplinary work is done? How do students collaborate with people in other fields? • If a student develops his or her own idea for a class, and the idea results in a patentable invention, does university have a policy regarding students’ rights to ownership in IP to which they materially contributed?Check which apply: • Students must assign all rights under standard policy upon entering the University • Students must assign all rights upon entering the course • Student rights handled on case-by-case basis (Student assignment of rights dealt with only upon creation of IP in the course) • If yes, can you describe briefly what issues you have faced and how you dealt with them when individual cases do arise? • There is no policy at all • Students retain all rights(who owns the invention? Be aware that many students/professors think that the inventor is the owner – so the issue is clearer if we ask if inventors must assign their ownership rights to the University or other entity.) • Other (explain)

26. What interdisciplinary work is done? How do students collaborate with people in other fields? • How do you protect IP (includes any form of information, not just patentable inventions) associated with the class? • Sign agreement covering confidentiality and non-disclosure upon entering class • Sign such agreement on a case-by-case basis • Never sign such agreements • No policy regarding confidentiality • Other • To whom do these agreements pertain? (e.g. between individual students and the university, among students in the class, etc)

27. How are issues handled when academics conflict with innovation? • Has your university encountered any situations where the students or the design course's academic objectives might be compromised by the experiential nature of the course? Consider four specific situations: • Students getting paid in conjunction with the course • Unfairness, real or perceived, regarding the students level of participation or value of experience throughout the project • Students' managing effectively the time spent on the design course versus time left for the students other courses • Student IP ownership • Bias, real or perceived, in the grading as a result of IP or financial outcomes • What does your university do to assure that students gain educational experience from a project and are not used as "labor" valued primarily for their prior skills to earn a grade? How has this affected policies? • How pleased are you with your current policy? • works well, no changes needed • works reasonably well, needs minor changes • works but need significant improvement • doesn’t work at all • Are there any other comments you would like to make on IP policy?

28. Optional Questions(time permitting)

29. What is the role of a Technology Transfer or IP Management office in promoting innovation? • How is the Technology Transfer or IP Management office involved when a student in the design course has an invention? • Consultation (idea evaluation, helping inventor find resources to pursue IP) • Funding (pays for patent application and legal counsel) • Support for new ventures (incubator, seed money) • Support for technology licensing (market analysis, finding and funding contract) • Securing new research (government or privately commissioned projects) • Other: • Don’t know • Do engineering students collaborate with students or faculty from other schools, departments or campus groups? If so, who participates? What is the nature of participation? • Business (management, entrepreneurship, marketing) • Law (patent, regulatory) • Art (graphic design, industrial design) • Humanities (ethics, social studies) • Medical (clinical applications, applied research) • Other: • Don’t know