Intellectual Property

(Updated July 13, 2017)

Union College is a college of liberal arts and engineering whose mission is to maintain a community of inquiry, discourse, and experiment in which it is clear that scholarship and teaching are parts of a single enterprise. The intellectual endeavors and activities of its faculty, staff, or students may result in products of a tangible nature for which the College and the faculty, staff, or student may deem it advantageous to enter these products into commerce. The College strives to support its faculty and employees in securing commercial development of intellectual property resulting from their research so that society may benefit at the earliest opportunity. These products may be the subject of a patent application or a copyrightable work or other tangible material and are known collectively as “Intellectual Property.”

This policy is intended to:

• provide an incentive to creative intellectual effort and the advancement of knowledge;
• insure that the respective interests of the College, and supporting sponsor (if any) are considered and protected through the development of fair contracts and procedures;
• assist the Staff and the College to realize tangible benefits from Intellectual Property, and advance and encourage further research within the College with whatever funds accrue to the College from Intellectual Property resulting from College research.

The entire policy can be found in the Union College Faculty Manual at Section V-IV.