[vox] directories - too much of a good thing?

[Peter Jay Salzman]

begin Mike Simons <msimons@moria.simons-clan.com> 
> On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 04:33:58AM -0800, Mark K. Kim wrote:
> > PS: Perhaps I should patent the programming techniques I came up with when
> > I was a student...  oh wait, the school has the rights on those since I
> > turned 'em in for grades.  darn!
> 
>   Uhm... well if you post your homework in a public forum and there is
> discussion about it before they patent it, there is prior art which
> could be used to overturn the patent.
> 
>   Posting it in a public place could be bad if they claim copyright
> ownership over your homework assignments.
> 
> - Which rights does the school claim on student's works?
> - Do you have any URLs?
> 
>   I don't see how they have a legal footing to claim ownership of 
> student works because there was no compensation for the work (in 
> fact you paid *them* to be able to perform the work).
> 
>     TTFN,
>       Mike

i don't know about undergrads, but grads sign a document saying that
anything which we produce which is patentable is property of the school
if we use ANY school resources, including computers, email, funding or
professor's guidance.  it was one of the first documents UCD had me sign
after i signed the "i accept" form.

this is pretty standard, not just UCD.

in fact, there was a nasty lawsuit over mathematica, since steve wolfram
wrote it while he was a physics graduate student at caltech (to do
general relativistic tensor calculations, i might add!).  caltech tried
to claim ownership but didn't win.

don't know about undergrads, but i think mark was making a funny.  :)

pete

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