For Immediate Release
March 30, 2004
CONTACT: Patrick Nowlan, 732-445-2278
In a decision issued on March 26, 2004, the New Jersey Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) ruled that critical aspects of the university's patent policy must be negotiated with its faculty union, the Rutgers Council of AAUP Chapters. The AAUP hails this ruling because it will spur even greater research accomplishments by the faculty.
The 50 page PERC decision requires the Rutgers administration to negotiate with the faculty union over (1) the amount of royalty income to be distributed to the inventor, (2) the timing of inventors' disclosure of inventions, (3) the ownership of, access to and review of laboratory notebooks, (4) reversion rights of invention to the inventors, (5) compensation for no fee licenses and equity partnerships, (6) procedural requirements of the patent policy, (7) the dispute resolution mechanism, (8) future amendments of the policy, and (9) the effective date of any negotiated policy changes.
"The AAUP filed this case because Rutgers' current policy actually discourages faculty and other members of the university community from pursuing new and beneficial patentable discoveries. This judicial decision, long overdue, will help move Rutgers towards its goal of becoming a great research university by requiring greater faculty participation in shaping cutting edge intellectual property policies," said AAUP President Rudy Bell.
While the union did not prevail on all counts, it has decided to abide by the decision and asks that the university administration also agree not to appeal in the interest of moving forward with a shared goal of bringing Rutgers into the elite among public research universities.