AAUP Policy Work on Intellectual Property

Statement on Intellectual Property

This statement was approved for publication by AAUP’s National Council.

Defending the Freedom to Innovate: Faculty Intellectual Property Rights After Stanford v. Roche

The report on intellectual property, Defending the Freedom to Innovate:  Faculty Intellectual Property (IP) Rights After Stanford v. Roche, was written by an ad hoc committee chaired by Cary Nelson, AAUP president from 2006-2012, and was approved for publication by AAUP’s Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The final version of the report was published in the 2014 issue of the AAUP Bulletin.

Recommended Principles to Guide Academy-Industry Relationships

Recommended Principles to Guide Academy-Industry Relationships is a 368-page report published in book form by the AAUP Foundation in January 2014. The report includes detailed discussion of eleven IP principles, as well as extensive documentation of the relevant scholarship. Faculty and administrators interested in adopting our recommendations will benefit from consulting the published book, which is now available as a free download.

Redbook Statements on Copyright and Distance Education

Additionally, see the AAUP’s  Statement on Copyright and Statement on Online and Distance Education, two important policy statements included in the eleventh (2015) edition of AAUP Policy Documents & Reports, popularly known as the Redbook. The Redbook includes both our recommended policies and those policies that we seek to enforce through selective investigations, reports, and censure or sanction decisions recommended by the national Council and carried out by the AAUP’s annual meeting.

AAUP Case Letters on Intellectual Property Issues

Provided are three AAUP letters addressing intellectual property issues at Stanford, University of California, Santa Cruz, and the University of Chicago. AAUP case letters grow out of requests for assistance coming from individual faculty member(s). When faculty members confront administrative decisions that compromise their academic freedom, they often ask the AAUP national staff and leadership for assistance. After determining whether the complaint appears to implicate our policies, we routinely request the faculty member(s) to supply copies of all relevant letters, emails, and local policy statements. A letter detailing our concerns, referencing our policies, inviting an administration response, and requesting redress for the faculty member (conditional on receiving additional information from the administration) may follow. These three letters represent ongoing cases that may require further action on our part. They are reprinted here with the permission of the faculty members who requested our assistance.