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		<title>Intellectual property issues and problems</title>
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							<p>The increased emphasis placed on developing intellectual property creates tensions in research, and occasionally results in irresponsible behaviour.</p>
							<p>The responsible protection and ownership of intellectual property is becoming increasingly complex as new ways of developing and using intellectual property emerge. The following are examples of emerging issues that could have a bearing on the responsible protection of intellectual property.</p>
							
							<instructional-text><p>Click on each image for a different example of how complex intellectual property issues can get, as well as an insight into the difficulties associated with this area.</p></instructional-text>
							<accessible-text><p>Continue on for various examples of how complex intellectual property issues can get.</p></accessible-text>

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								<opinion name="Teaching vs research" img-src="../images/activity_images/course_specific/inp_1_50_img1.png" img-alt="Alt">
									<p>Two students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (New York, USA) thought they owned a unique plastic water bottle that they developed as part of a first-year group project and later refined on their own. After use, the water bottles could be filled with sand and used to build houses.</p>
									<p>After reviewing the case, the university eventually concluded that the students owned the design for the bottles, but not the idea. The university agreed to license the idea to the students for a small fee that was well below what the students would have had to pay had the university owned and developed the design patent  (Stainburn, 2008).</p>
									<p>The conclusion of this case would, no doubt, have been different if the idea and design were developed as part of a research project. This case illustrates why working relationships with students and staff should be carefully worked out before any patentable ideas and designs are developed.</p>
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								<opinion name="Open access" img-src="../images/activity_images/course_specific/inp_1_50_img2.png" img-alt="Alt">
									<p>Copyright limits the circulation of information to those who can afford to pay for copies. In research, this payment is in the form of subscriptions to professional journals, many of which are owned by for-profit companies.</p>
									<p>To make research more readily available, particularly to the general public, funding agencies are encouraging open-access publication. For example, all published findings from research funded by the UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) research councils must be made "freely accessible" (RCUK, 2018). This can either be through the payment of processing charges to journals, who will publish the final article online and allow authors to retain their own copyright ('gold' open access); or through uploading an early version of the article before it is edited and typeset by the journal to an institutional or subject repository ('green' open access). However, the green route may conflict with the requirement for excusive transfer of copyright to a publisher. It is, therefore, important to get permission from your publisher before you post an article on an open-access site, and/or check the publisher's conditions (required embargo period, permitted version for upload, etc.) carefully.</p>
								</opinion>
								<opinion name="Non-human inventor" img-src="../images/activity_images/course_specific/inp_1_50_img3.png" img-alt="Alt">
									<p>In 2019, two patent applications were submitted by the University of Surrey: one for a food container with a "fractal profile [...] enabling multiple containers to be coupled together" and the second for "methods for attracting enhanced attention" using flashing lights. However, both were rejected by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the UKIPO as the inventor was listed as an AI machine called DABUS.</p>
									<p>In his ruling, the UKIPO hearing officer noted that an AI machine could not be considered a person who would be able to take advantage of the patent and thus: "The fundamental function of the patent system is to encourage innovation by granting time-limited monopolies in exchange for public disclosure [...] an AI machine is unlikely to be motivated to innovate by the prospect of obtaining patent protection". However, they did concede that "inventions created by AI machines are likely to become more prevalent in future and there is a legitimate question as to how or whether the patent system should handle such inventions. I have found that the present system does not cater for such inventions and it was never anticipated that it would, but times have changed and technology has moved on. It is right that this is debated more widely" (UKIPO, 2019).</p>
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								<opinion name="Counting patents" img-src="../images/activity_images/course_specific/inp_1_50_img5.png" img-alt="Alt">
									<p>As countries place more emphasis on encouraging patent development, the success of these efforts has become a public issue. Success is often measured by quantifying the number of patent applications. Australia's latest report on patent applications was characterised as follows:</p>
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										<p>Australia's number one generator of intellectual property by patent applications in 2017 was poker machine king Aristocrat Technologies. [...]</p>
										<p>According to IP Australia's Intellectual Property Report 2018, Aristocrat topped the list of Australian organisations applying for standard patents in 2017 with 157 applications. [...]</p>
										<p>CSIRO [Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation] came in second with 45 applications, with the University of Queensland running third with 18 applications. (Riley, 2018)</p>
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									<p>Sceptics wonder whether government efforts to promote innovation through research have been successful. Other observers feel the numbers reflect a more optimistic view, particularly when it comes to putting universities' efforts into perspective (Summerfield, 2018).  While widely accepted, encouragement to commercialise academic research still has its critics.</p>
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							<p>For some researchers, the increased complexity of intellectual property protection and the time it takes away from research can present a challenge. For others, the complexities are simply the price of working in a more connected research world and are well worth the effort.</p>
							
							<h3>Your experience</h3>
							
							<p>Many universities, as publicly funded institutions, make promises to ensure work conducted by their researchers is put to use. Often this is referred to as 'impact'. However, the pursuit of impact can sometimes place considerable pressure on researchers, who may be expected to look at the application and economic prospects of their research before it is appropriately advanced. What is your experience?</p>
							
							<instructional-text><p>Answer the following questions &ndash; you will then be able to see how your thoughts compare with those of others taking this module.</p></instructional-text>
							<instructional-text-accessible><p>Consider each question and select the answer that best reflects your experience or opinion in each case.</p></instructional-text-accessible>
							
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									<poll poll-id="10488807" noscript-text="How important is it to you personally to protect and develop your intellectual property?"></poll>
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									<poll poll-id="10488808" noscript-text="How important is intellectual property development at your institution?"></poll>
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									<poll poll-id="10488809" noscript-text="How important is intellectual property development in your department?"></poll>
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									<poll poll-id="10488810" noscript-text="What impact does intellectual property development have on research overall?"></poll>
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								<h4>Question 1 of 4:</h4>
								<p>How important is it to you personally to protect and develop your intellectual property?</p>
								<p><strong>Answer options:</strong></p>
								<ul>
									<li>Very important</li>
									<li>Important</li>
									<li>Neutral</li>
									<li>Unimportant</li>
									<li>Very unimportant</li>
									<li>Not applicable</li>
								</ul>
								<h4>Question 2 of 4:</h4>
								<p>How important is intellectual property development at your institution?</p>
								<p><strong>Answer options:</strong></p>
								<ul>
									<li>Very important</li>
									<li>Important</li>
									<li>Neutral</li>
									<li>Unimportant</li>
									<li>Very unimportant</li>
									<li>Not applicable</li>
								</ul>
								<h4>Question 3 of 4:</h4>
								<p>How important is intellectual property development in your department?</p>
								<p><strong>Answer options:</strong></p>
								<ul>
									<li>Very important</li>
									<li>Important</li>
									<li>Neutral</li>
									<li>Unimportant</li>
									<li>Very unimportant</li>
									<li>Not applicable</li>
								</ul>
								<h4>Question 4 of 4:</h4>
								<p>What impact does intellectual property development have on research overall?</p>
								<p><strong>Answer options:</strong></p>
								<ul>
									<li>Very important</li>
									<li>Important</li>
									<li>Neutral</li>
									<li>Unimportant</li>
									<li>Very unimportant</li>
									<li>Not applicable</li>
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							<h3>Summary</h3>

							<p>However you feel about the emphasis placed on intellectual property, it is important that you do not allow the pressure to establish intellectual property to interfere with your responsibilities. Society now widely accepts that researchers can profit from their research, but not at the expense of the accuracy, reliability and general usefulness of the research itself.</p>
							
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