At the other extreme is the University of California, which claims property rights to essentially all faculty inventions. This claim is based on an express agreement signed by faculty upon employment at any of the university campuses. Especially needful of legal advice are graduate students who often contribute substantially to the inventions of their faculty mentors but who have essentially no claim to intellectual property rights unless they are also university employees, most of whom are not.
Although not widely appreciated, the law is on the side of the faculty. Despite university administrators' assertions to the contrary based on "agency principles," the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v Dubilier (289 U.S. 178) gave inventors the "inherent right" to own their inventions unless abrogated by an explicit agreement to the contrary. While most universities have such explicit agreements that transfer to them faculty invention rights, these agreements are susceptible to legal ...
