Teachers and educators face challenges in determining who owns intellectual property not only for those items they create, but also for those items they utilize in the classroom. Teachers may refer to the Copyright Act of 1994 (LINK?) for guidance. In most cases, when a teacher creates a literary work in the course of his or her employment, the employer owns the copyright of the work; however, there are exceptions. According to patent attorneys at PIPERS Patent Attorneys, “there is, however, a well-established exception to this general rule, namely that copyright in a lecture delivered by an employee who is employed to lecture lies with that employee. Thus, by analogy, it would seem that copyright in teaching materials produced by a teacher is owned by that teacher. The employer could always seek to obtain copyright in any teaching materials by inserting a suitable term in the teacher’s contract of employment, but this does not appear to be a term of the National Collective Agreement.” 

Similarly, teachers often inquire about how they can protect their copyright. PIPERS Patent Attorneys explains, “Copyright protection arises automatically without the need for any formal registration. As, however, it may be necessary to prove both the authorship and date of creation, it is a good idea to mark copyright material with the words © Author Name. Date. All Rights Reserved

If you believe that you may wish to enforce your copyright at some future date it is advisable to lodge a copy with a firm of Patent Attorneys who can attest to its receipt.”

The increase of technology access and online courses at the university level has heightened awareness of ownership and control of materials. To that end, university professors face challenges relative to intellectual property. Professors make guest lecture appearances and online courses are prevalent in today’s educational field. Instructors create slides, tv lectures, and other information for online students, so do they own the rights to the material they create? Traditionally, when research is conducted at the university, rights lie with the university. However, in the end, some would argue that the final judgment should take both sides- the university and the individual instructor- into consideration. Regardless, universities need to continuously update and revisit their IP policies. According to Dr. Veronica Diaz, Learning Technologies Manager, Adjunct Professor at University of Arizona, “It is critical in the rapidly evolving development of eLearning technology that institutions regularly revisit campus IP policies. A policy that is five to seven years old hardly addresses the issues found in today’s distributed learning products…institutions would be wise to reexamine and revise policies on regular basis to keep pace with rapidly evolving technologies and practices”. The American Distance Education Consortium has posted various university IP policies for educators.