Intellectual Property FAQ’s
Intellectual Property (IP) includes all kinds of ideas and creations made by people, both things you can touch and things you can't. Choosing the right type(s) of protection for your idea is an important strategic choice. We help you establish an IP strategy tailored to your idea/research to help you maximize its commercial value while safeguarding your academic freedom and integrity.
IP protections include copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, publicity rights, design rights moral rights, Artistic works like music and literature, as well as some discoveries, inventions, words, phrases, symbols, and designs.
Put simply, IP is creations of the mind where the right to access can be owned, rented, or transferred.
Examples include: stories and articles, formulations, mechanisms and apparatus, artwork, processes and methods, music, recordings, databases, isolates, algorithms, new organisms, and brand names.
To As the saying goes, knowledge is power. You need to ensure that your research contributes is fairly recognised and maximises the chance of your research being used outside the academic world. Understanding IP can also reduce the risk of conflict (from inside and outside of AUT).
It’s relevant at pretty much all stages of research, from conception to transferring knowledge. For more clarity, here’s the typical pathway:
- Conceiving – Planning & Partnering – Grant Writing – Contract - Researching – Publishing – Transferring
AUT Ventures can help at every stage.
https://aut.ac.nz/ip
It’s strongly recommend best practice to agree IP ownership with postgrads BEFORE they start.
Here’s a high-level overview of IP tools, but we strong recommend you meet with one of the Ventures team to discuss your specific research project needs:
- Know-how (how to achieve something) – a catch-all for any useful knowledge
- Copyright (expressions of ideas) – papers and books, photos and videos, diagrams, software source code, technical drawings
- Inventions (new technical solutions) – devices, processes, algorithms, formulations
- Trademarks (distinctive identifiers) – names, slogans, logos, colours, smells and sounds
Not sure what you need?
Get in touch with us to discuss where you are at and how we can help you to advance your project.