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How is IP handled in this situation? Especially given the recent discussion [1] on HN about how the recently announced DeepMind Patent Portfolio could be a prob

by mlthrowaway1953 8y ago

How is IP handled in this situation? Especially given the recent discussion [1] on HN about how the recently announced DeepMind Patent Portfolio could be a problem, how is it that state employees (Washington, California) are "co-employed" by an organization to do _exactly_ the research that their home universities work on ? Who owns the IP in this case? Are these sorts of agreements FOIA-able? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17266951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17266951

chrisseaton 8y ago
> how is it that state employees (Washington, California) are "co-employed" by an organization to do _exactly_ the research that their home universities work on They will work part-time for the university, and part-time for Facebook. I don't see why that's so shocking? Presumably the university only funds them part-time for part-time work, so it's not like they're not getting what they're paying for if that's what you're asking. This is a very conventional set up for academics.
- mlthrowaway1953 8y ago
  Most employer agreements have fairly draconian claims around IP. And I believe that many universities require their faculty to run consulting, etc. gigs through their legal teams, and the university gets a "right of first refusal" of sorts on the generated IP. Many academics get around this by claiming that they are doing research X at company (more applied, etc.) and research Y at the university (more theory, technically different projects under different grants). But with ML it seems like it would be harder. Regardless, I'd love to figure out if we can get these agreements through freedom of information act requests, to shed light on what state-employees are doing.
  - Fomite 8y ago
    Yeah, at my university partnerships between academia and industry have very complex IP terms that depend on the scope of work, how much of it involves novel research, etc. And there, there's the clarity of "I'm an employee of the university". With dual appointments...the agreement has to be complex. Either that, or really draconian based on Facebook throwing it's weight around and saying "Accept this, or we'll find another university that will."
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]

chrisseaton 8y ago

> how is it that state employees (Washington, California) are "co-employed" by an organization to do _exactly_ the research that their home universities work on They will work part-time for the university, and part-time for Facebook. I don't see why that's so shocking? Presumably the university only funds them part-time for part-time work, so it's not like they're not getting what they're paying for if that's what you're asking. This is a very conventional set up for academics.

mlthrowaway1953 8y ago
Most employer agreements have fairly draconian claims around IP. And I believe that many universities require their faculty to run consulting, etc. gigs through their legal teams, and the university gets a "right of first refusal" of sorts on the generated IP. Many academics get around this by claiming that they are doing research X at company (more applied, etc.) and research Y at the university (more theory, technically different projects under different grants). But with ML it seems like it would be harder. Regardless, I'd love to figure out if we can get these agreements through freedom of information act requests, to shed light on what state-employees are doing.
- Fomite 8y ago
  Yeah, at my university partnerships between academia and industry have very complex IP terms that depend on the scope of work, how much of it involves novel research, etc. And there, there's the clarity of "I'm an employee of the university". With dual appointments...the agreement has to be complex. Either that, or really draconian based on Facebook throwing it's weight around and saying "Accept this, or we'll find another university that will."
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]