Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions or artistic or literary works. These works typically demonstrate knowledge, ideas, and creativity and are protected by legal and ownership rights. In the world of scholarly publishing, IP can refer to any type of scholarly publication format where new knowledge and ideas are formulated and must therefore be protected by licensing agreements. But, as an author, how do you ensure that you protect your intellectual property?
In this article, we will explain how author copyright works in academic publishing and strategies for retaining rights and protecting your IP, such as publishing as open access (OA) and, more specifically, posting your research as a preprint.
What is copyright?
In short, copyright is the inherent right granted to the author to have full control over their intellectual property. Supporting this right at a practical level are various forms of licensing. Licensing is the legal permission given by the author as to how others can distribute, reuse, and build upon their work.
In scholarly open access publishing, common types of licensing are Creative Commons (CC) licenses, which facilitate global accessibility, dissemination, and reusability of scholarly research.
How to protect your intellectual property
There are lots of different licensing agreements and ways to publish your scholarly work. So, what are the best ways to protect your intellectual property?
The most straightforward answer to this question would be to publish your scholarly article as open access. This is one of the most protective ways, since most OA journals don’t require a transfer of copyright after publication. Copyright transfer agreements (CTAs) may be used by journals or the publisher so that they become the legal owner of the work. As a consequence, they would cotnrol the rights to reproduce, distribute, translate, and archive the article.
Creative Commons licenses keep copyright with the author. This makes them the easiest way to ensure that your IP is being protected and used appropriately. There are also platforms you can use to check a journal’s open access publication and compliance conditions, such as JISC’s Open Policy Finder.
Preprints and copyright protection
Posting your scholarly research as a preprint is an even easier way to protect your intellectual property. Preprint servers such as Preprints.org automatically post all accepted preprints under a CC BY 4.0 license. This ensures that authors retain copyright and receive credit for their work whilst allowing anyone to read and use their work. This type of license maximises visibility and accessibility of your research. Such exposure is especially useful to early-career researchers looking to establish themselves.
CC BY 4.0 also complies with open access funder mandates. On top of that, it renders your work suitable for reuse in a variety of educational and commercial contexts.
Applying for a patent before posting a preprint
Authors looking to post a preprint online must be aware that preprints are often classed as “prior art”. In short, they act as a public disclosure available globally via search engines. What this means is that authors are required to submit a patent application to protect the novelty of their work before the preprint is posted. Under laws like the European Patent Convention, posting a preprint before filing a patent application destroys this novelty. Consequently, your research becomes unpatentable, potentially creating trademark issues.
For more information on how to protect your intellectual property, see our article on copyright and licensing.