As a general rule, students own the intellectual property that they create or invent. For example, a student in her dorm room that writes a novel owns the copyright in the novel. A student who designs a new ski binding in class or on their own in their dorm room owns the intellectual property.
The main exception to this rule is when a student is paid to work on a UVM project or if a student works on a project that makes substantial use of UVM resources generally not available to students. For example, if a student is paid to work in a lab on a federally funded research project and the student becomes an inventor on a patent, the student’s interest in the patent is assigned to UVM. In cases where the student is an inventor they share in any eventual royalty stream arising for the patent. Similarly, if UVM pays a student to create code for a redesign of the UVM website, the student’s interest in the copyright is assigned to UVM.
For certain open-source projects, UVM may require that students agree to assign their contributions to the project to UVM, even though UVM does not pay the student. This condition may be necessary to allow UVM to keep the project open-source or to meet its contractual commitments to its sponsors.
In some cases, UVM will require students to execute an IP Assignment Agreement as a condition of working on a project.
This short summary is meant to assist you in understanding a student’s rights and obligations. The UVM IP Policy sets for the full and official policy of UVM If you have any questions relating to how this policy works, please feel free to reach out to Andrew.zehner@uvm.edu.