Work in progress - Undergraduates and intellectual property: Trends, policies, and practices

Undergraduate students are increasingly engaged in developing products, technologies, and services that are commercially viable through their involvement in courses and experiential programs focused on entrepreneurship and product design. Little is known about the degree to which these activities are creating protectable intellectual property (IP) or the degree to which student involvement in these activities is aligned with university policies and practices. This work in progress describes the rationale behind a survey that will be administered to university technology transfer offices to understand trends in the level of undergraduate involvement in IP protection, common institutional policies and practices, suggestions on how policies can be improved, and to what extent this differs based on institutional characteristics. Ultimately, the purpose is to understand the degree to which IP policy, and an institution’s implementation and communication of it, hinders or fosters entrepreneurial activity among undergraduate students. Index Terms – Design, Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, Research, Undergraduate