[davidajackson]

Might be different in upper levels, but this wasn't the case from my experience as an undergrad at Stanford. Wanted to mess around with programming drones for a prototype delivery system (I think in 2015), submitted my proposal for a 2k grant to buy a drone, but I dropped the idea when the committee that manages it said they would make decisions about IP. Maybe my proposal wasn't important enough to warrant an actual negotiation? I suspect that at upper levels of development/research this process is handled differently.

[dekhn]

undergraduates aren't employees and have total freedom to do what they want with their intellectual output. However, they can just decide not to give you any money if you make trouble.