The Chronicle of Higher Education
September 12th, 2014
The University of Pittsburgh has backed down from a plan to require faculty members to sign away their intellectual-property rights, indefinitely postponing the deadline it had set for them to do so, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
The university’s provost, Patricia E. Beeson, said she would form a task force to examine the issue. The faculty assembly this week approved a resolution asking the university’s administration to delay the deadline.
Administrators have said an explicit agreement, in which faculty members agree to transfer their intellectual-property rights to the university, is required under a 2011 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.