[Keverw]

Do colleges own startups people create while going to school? If so that sounds horrible considering how much college costs.

I heard if you work for a company while also developing a startup depending on the contract the company can claim they own the startup - even if you were working on it at home with your computer you bought with your own money and off the clock for them.

[peter303]

Typically there is a three way way split: college, dept and prof/student. I know students who drop out rather than give up too much to the university.

I was a Stanford grad student in the 1980s when these policies were still being worked out. There were cases of grad students being abused by the commercial interests of their professors before the university clamped down. These abuses included postponing the publication of results which could delay graduation or an academic career. Now profs and students can only spend 20% of their time on commercial interest or should take a leave of absence and leave Stanford facilities if they want to work more. The just retired Stanford President did such when creating his RISC computer company MIPS. Also you can only delay publication one year.

[ucaetano]

No, but they do own patents created by their researchers.

Stanford didn't own Google, they owned the PageRank patent, which they licensed to Google in return for equity.

[Keverw]

Interesting. "patents created by their researchers" so if it's a official school project then, and not someone doing it on their own? That would makes since. I don't get why schools need patents in the first place though.

[matthewmcg]

If you sign an invention assignment agreement (IAA) with a university, it will own inventions that fall within the scope of the agreement. Universities typically require employees including faculty, staff, and graduate students to sign these agreements. Even if a university employee doesn't sign an IAA, the university might have "shop rights" or copyright ownership of developments made with university resources or within the scope of employment.

Undergraduate students generally are not employed by the university and are not required to sign IAAs, so they keep the rights to their own inventions. (Though there can be some tricky situations where significant university resources are used.)

[CoryG89]

They don't need them, except for financial gain. They make money off their patents just like the parent said, by licensing them, selling them, etc.

[ucaetano]

Even if they're doing it on their own, it might be owned by the school if it is related to the work they're doing, just like any company.

[Keverw]

Interesting. I thought people went to college to learn, not to work for the school.

Do they get paid to do this sort of stuff too? I know I heard of people working in like the library to help pay down their loans. Just never really thought of colleges owning IP. So just a bit of a surprise to me.

[ucaetano]

Universities are research centers, not just schools.

Undergraduate students get scholarships for doing research, grad students do research as part of their studies and professors are usually researchers as well.

[jacquesm]

According to this article Universities are hedge funds with schools attached.

https://www.thenation.com/article/universities-are-becoming-...