American academics—faculty, professional staff, researchers and graduate student research assistants—have always been leaders in the creation of intellectual property. In many instances, that work product is protected by U.S. copyright and patent legislation. Until recently, higher education faculty and staff have been relatively free to produce research and to write articles, books and textbooks without the institution claiming ownership or seeking to profit from the intellectual work of its employees. Faculty and staff also have been able, within reasonable bounds, to reproduce, quote and make "fair use" of the work of others in their classes and academic publications.

Issues concerning the ownership and control of intellectual property on campus, however, have become more complicated and pressing as college administrations step up their efforts to profit from the research, scholarship, and teaching of the faculty and staff. As a result, higher education unions must start to pay very close attention to legislation, court decisions and campus policies concerning intellectual property--and to protect their members' interests through collective bargaining. This is especially true at senior colleges and universities, but, with the growth of distance education at community colleges—and the profits that can be derived from it—faculty and staff unions at two-year colleges now also need to consider these issues carefully.

AFT and our affiliates have been working to educate members about their intellectual property rights and ensure that those rights are protected through local collective bargaining agreements. In particular, we encourage locals to:

• Define the range of works owned exclusively by individual faculty or staff members;

• Bargain for ownership of as much of members' creative works as possible;

• Define the works that are owned jointly by the faculty member and the institution;

• Define ownership of intellectual property created while a bargaining member is on sabbatical or engaged in individual research projects, sponsored or commissioned works.

• Include faculty protection for inventions and copyrightable works;

• Bargain for the support needed to create such works;

• Negotiate compensation and workload credit in distance-education courses;

• Include a maximum class size in clauses for distance-education courses;

• Protect job security;

• Bargain for adequate training and technical support for distance-education courses for faculty;

• Ensure that material is used in a way that upholds professional standards;

• Create a process that can promptly and efficiently resolve any new questions about ownership that might arise; and,

• Establish joint committees on technology.

For a full overview of intellectual property rights and what unions can do to assist you in protecting those rights, see our publication: Intellectual Property Issues for Higher Education Unions: A Primer as well as our publications related to technology issues.