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Research Data Management: Intellectual Property Plans

Data management basics and tools provided by the UC-system.

What is an Intellectual Property Plan?

Occasionally, an NSF directorate will request an Intellectual Property Plan.  More often, it is an expected subsection of a DMP.  This page covers basics of Intellectual Property (IP), current and past NSF requests, and resources available to UCR affiliates.

UCR Intellectual Property Resources

Where do you find requirements of a plan?

As with all items related to grant funded programs, policy and requirements will come from many levels.  In the case of grant proposals originating from UCR, places to look are the federal (US), state (CA), and local (RIV) governments; the funder; and, the local system (UC) and institution (UCR).  This page will use a example case of a recent NSF DEB Program Solicitation.

Intellectual Property Plans and NSF

There are instances of NSF using the phrase “Intellectual Property Plan” in older guidelines (1). At that time, it was a supplemental document that “provide(s) assurance that an agreement covering issues such as intellectual property has been or will be established within a reasonable time after the notifications of awarded projects. Such an agreement should satisfy the policies and practices of each Participant.”


Current guidance on Education & Broadening Participation DEB supplement (2) requests wants info on how intellectual property rights are handled when graduate students are involved with the program. More references also in a Dear Colleague Letter (3).
 
According to the example program solicitation, the two points under DMP which are most significant for IP plan/rights are

  • License for use, with an emphasis on open source licenses such as MIT and GPL;
  • Any constraints on release, which must be clearly justified; and Person(s) responsible for the release

Types of Intellectual Property (IP)

Here are typical main types of Intellectual Property (IP) which should be addressed specifically in an IP Plan, and considered when creating a DMP.

Copyright

  • The current NSF template should have some boilerplate language how faculty/authors maintain copyright of their written publications, although, I’ll need to check – we might have that and IP related language scattered under the different larger categories.  Also, if it’s not there, we can reference the current UC Copyright ownership policy. Let me know if I need to find some language for this.

 
Data (not always considered IP, but sometimes is)

  • Ownership of research data generated is governed by the UC Research Data policy. If the project is using data under a data use agreement, the DMP needs to reference that. An FYI for future consideration – according to the policy, research data must be kept as long as necessary to protect IP & complete patenting/licensing procedures for inventions.

 
Code/scripts/etc

  • If any code is being developed, or scripts shared as part of the data sharing, license needs to be specifically listed.

 
Inventions & Other IP: Patents, trade secrets, etc

  • If the project is not creating any IP which is covered by patents, trade secrets, etc, the DMP or requested IP Plan should explicitly state that.  (Kat’s note: This part reminds me of NSF proposals submitted by community colleges I worked at previously – they were education and capacity building grants and generated no data.  They still were required to submit a DMP stating the project was generating no research data.  So, in lack of other guidance, the safest bet is to be explicit if there is no IP.)