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Commercialisation Section 6 Case Study Arnold has just been contacted by an editor from Semi-Conductors Monthly asking whether he would write an article on his conclusions from a project he has recently been involved in with his supervisor. Arnold is asked to sign an agreement before writing the article. Arnold notices one clause which states "I hereby assign all intellectual property rights in or relating to the Article". What should Arnold do? First Arnold should speak with his supervisor. Arnold and his supervisor should consider whether there are any results, conclusions or other information which could be patentable or valuable to readers for use or further development. Disclosure and publication would prevent any patent being granted. Once Arnold has written the article, provided it is Arnold's own work, Arnold will be the author of the copyright in the written article. Arnold should also consider his moral rights in connection with the article if he has any (see Section 1). However, Arnold will not necessarily own the copyright in the article and should check whether he or his university/ institution is the owner, referring to any relevant IP Policy and the IP commercialisation organisation. It may be that his university/institution has to sign the agreement rather than Arnold. Check if an assignment to Semi-Conductors Monthly could be avoided. A licence should be sufficient for Semi-Conductors Monthly to use the article for the purposes of publishing it in a specific edition. An assignment of all intellectual property rights in or relating to the article would mean that Semi-Conductors Monthly would become the owner of the copyright in the article and the university/institution or Arnold would be unable to reproduce the Article again, even internally, without asking for consent and possibly having to pay a licence fee. 35