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Intellectual Property Explained

The majority of the intellectual property generated at UC Davis is related to copyrights. The copyrighted material developed at campus includes university-written software, journals, articles, books, music, musical performances, videos, and web sites. UC Davis InnovationAccess in the Office of Research has many resources defining copyrighted material, ownership, and the processes for distributing. Business Contracts handles some written licenses to obtain the use of someone else's patent-protected technology, such as genetic testing processes.

The Regents of the University of California have several registered trademarks. Income from trademark licensing helps support many worthwhile programs. Licensing is managed by a coordinator located in the Office of the Vice Chancellor - Student Affairs for several campus departments. Questions related to uses of trademarks for public relations should be directed to the UC Davis News Service-Public Communications.

A common type of agreement related to the intellectual property of trade secrets is a confidentiality agreement, also called a nondisclosure agreement. Sometimes the issues related to confidentiality are the toughest to negotiate, as our land-grant university status means the university cannot agree to keep secrets indefinitely unless it forwards the university mission in a significant way. Sometimes our progress with a particular company grows from agreement to agreement - hence the need for consistency in negotiations. Federal and state law, university policies and the tradition of academic freedom all come into play, but Business Contracts works to find solutions that meet everyone's needs.