Researchers going abroad

What is IPR

Intellectual property rights include copyright, patent rights, rights in a trademark, utility model rights, design copyright, rights to a commercial name, protection of integrated circuits and layout designs, and plant variety rights. All intellectual property rights are granted for a limited period of time. A basic distinction between copyright and so called industrial rights is that industrial rights require registration in order to come into force whereas copyright does not.

Finnish legislation concerning IPR issues is available in internet on page http://www.finlex.fi/fi/. Some acts have been translated to English and such acts are available on the English pages http://www.finlex.fi/en/.

Information about IPR issues especially in EU projects but also general knowledge is available at the IPR Hepdesk pages http://www.ipr-helpdesk.org/controlador/principal?seccion=principal&len=en.

IPR-issues at funding application stage

Applicants shall pay special attention to the rights of using research results and making relevant agreements. The research plan shall detail the contents of the research and the mutual rights and obligations of the parties involved. It is advisable that before submitting their research plan, researchers and research teams clarify whether the research might generate inventions with commercial application. A patentable invention, however, should not be described in an application or its appendices or anywhere else in public before a patent application has been filed.

University and company policies and practices in research projects

Every entity, whether an university, a research institution or a company may have its own way of dealing with IPR issues. They may have their own guidelines for IPR. Universities in Finland have quite few and rather vague policies concerning IPR issues at the moment. Present policies also concern mainly inventions. If the legislation concerning employee inventions at the universities is approved the universities are expected to provide policies or at least some kind of rules how to deal with inventions. In general universities do not have policies concerning other IPR except inventions. Existing policies are public and available at the universities but usually in Finnish.

Each university usually provides its own model contracts to be used in research projects. Model contracts are not usually generally available. Model contracts may be available at the university's internal pages, though, and they can be obtained by asking the university personnel.

For example the following contracts may need to be signed within research or research project:

Research co-operation agreement
Agreement of assignment of rights
Confidentiality agreement
Material transfer agreement

In each contract IPR issues are usually present as well.

Private companies may also have their own policies and their own model contracts. It is usually impossible to get general information about these documents as they are often considered as business secrets and they are not public information. Private companies are not under the same regulations of publicity as the universities.

What to do when moving to another organisation

When a researcher moves to a new host organisation, the researcher must find out beforehand what kind of intellectual property rights he/she has created earlier and how she/he is able to use the rights or do all the rights belong to his/hers former work community and employer. This concerns any researcher moving from one entity to another, going abroad, returning to homeland or moving between entities in his/her own country. User rights to existing IPR need to be agreed upon either with the researcher or with the institution the researcher is coming from depending on who is the right holder. Agreement must be made with the authorised persons representing the host institution.

/eracareers/research policy/Intellectual property rights

Useful links

IPR University Center
The National Board of Patents and Registration (NBPR)
IPR Helpdesk
Finnish acts and decrees
Foundation for Finnish inventions
World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)

IPR checklist of a researcher

What Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are

Intellectual property rights (IPR) can be divided in two categories:

author's right or copyright with its neighbouring rights (e.g. performing) and
industrial property rights, which include patents, utility models, trade marks, trade names, designs, the protection of integrated circuits and layout designs, and plant variety rights.

Even if the author or inventor has sold his economic rights to a publisher or a company, he still has the moral rights concerning his work / invention: the right to be mentioned as the author (droit de paternité) and the right to object to the derogatory treatment of his work (droit de respect).

IPR are protected by international, regional and national law. In the legal and practical framework of intellectual property system, the transfer of ownership and the conditions of use are usually determined by contracts.

Researchers as creators and users of IPR

Researchers produce and use material protected by IPR. In his work, a researcher should always be aware of

the IP rights he has acquired earlier (usually as an author or inventor);
the intellectual property which is being created during the research process and the ownership of the respective rights;
the rights that are connected with the results of his research (future publications, inventions, patents, licences);
the rights of those whose works he uses in his own study.

The kind and extent of the rights researchers can receive and exploit in their work vary a lot depending on their status (individual doctoral students, participants of graduate schools, in various types of university projects or in companies or research institutes) and on agreements made.

What a researcher should keep in mind

1) concerning literary works:

Terms of his own earlier publishing contracts, e.g. journal articles or books:
-         what rights has the publisher or the host organisation retained to itself?
-         has the researcher the right to re-publish his own texts elsewhere?
-         N.B. He can anytime publish the same ideas in a different article or book.
His agreement with his present team or employer on future publications. Researchers should agree on the publishing methods and the division of possible income before the project starts.
Possibility to publish articles in Open Access journals or under a Creative Commons licence.
To what extent he can freely cite and exploit other people's literary work or extracted data.

2) concerning patents or patent filings

If he has made or contributed to a patented invention, who has the right to decide on it: he alone, his earlier research group, university or a company who has acquired the rights through a contract or by law or other rules.
As long as a patent application has not been filed, he must not reveal his invention.
Registration procedures vary from country to country.
Before submitting a research plan, the applicant(s) should take into account that research might generate inventions with commercial potential and publications. The research plan of a team should also contain a description of the mutual rights and obligations of the parties involved.
The possibly patented technology he is using in his work - who makes the licensing agreements? Who is responsible for possible infringements?

3) Earlier commitments

Possible restrictions caused by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) concerning his earlier work
N.B. outside the actual NDA a researcher can use his professional skills freely
The rights that he has partly or entirely assigned to another institution or person(s)

Where to seek help

- An extensive IPR guide with comprehensive links for researchers especially in Finland is available on the web site maintained by the European Commission "The Researcher's Mobility Portal" / Finland, compiled by the Academy of Finland.

- Mobile Researchers' Guide: Intellectual Property Rights in Finland (pdf)

Useful links

IPR University Center

The National Board of Patents and Registration (NBPR)

IPR Helpdesk

Finnish acts and decrees

Foundation for Finnish inventions

World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)

IPR University Center (also has more relevant links)