Applicable Laws

This policy establishes general rules that can be superseded by agreement, and effective January 19, 2017, and amended April 11, 2017, will be binding for all employees including faculty, administration, staff, and students. All IP that is partially developed as of the effective date of this policy will be treated in accordance with the provisions of this policy.

Hartwick College (the College) complies with all applicable laws regarding copyright and other forms of intellectual property (IP) and does not permit the unlawful use or exploitation of copyrighted works. In accordance with copyright law, and except as otherwise noted in this policy, the College owns the rights to the work, inventions, patents, developments, and discoveries created by employees within the scope of their employment, including any work related to an individual’s job responsibilities, whether or not the employee is specifically asked to create the work.

The College is committed to an environment that supports learning, teaching, research, scholarship, the transfer of knowledge, and the creative work of its employees and students and invests in this by making available the College’s resources including, but not limited to, its facilities, information, equipment, technology, personnel, funding, and other resources for the creations of IP. Furthermore, the College is responsible for ensuring that all College-owned IP is administered in the best interest of the College’s mission.

Students are not covered by this policy unless they are paid employees of the College. If a student creates IP as part of their credit-earning academic work, then the IP belongs to the student. If, however, a student creates IP as part of the scope of their paid employment, then the IP is owned by the College. In the event of any doubt as to employment status, the student and her/his supervisor should contact the Office of Human Resources for clarification.

The College does not claim ownership of scholarly or creative works such as books, articles, plays, sculptures, or other works of art created by employees within the scope of employment. It is not the intent of this policy to change the relationship between the author/creator and the College relative to the copyright of scholarly works. However, if an employee in the course of their employment creates IP other than their scholarly work which may lead to business and marketable development, then the employee is expected to immediately notify the College in order to provide sufficient information to let the College evaluate the work, its ownership and its commercial potential, and, if appropriate, to take the necessary steps to protect the College’s IP rights.

The College waives any claim of ownership in the copyright of pedagogical teaching works created by faculty within the scope of employment at the College, including, but not limited to traditional classroom and online course syllabi, course notes, course plans, lectures, and lecture notes, tests, interactive media, computer programs, web pages and other digital media, bibliographies, and other similar materials. However, the College shall retain a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free license to use such works for academic and educational purposes.