All Hands Meeting 2004 Intellectual Property Task Force Anders Dale, Jeff Grethe, Amarnath Gupta, Ron Kikinis, John Lauriello, Steve Pieper, Gary Glover

IP Task Force Mission  Develop policies for publication of experimental results by BIRN members and those who use BIRN data/technology  Develop policies for dissemination of BIRN technology within BIRN and to outside investigators, e.g. image analysis algorithms, software, paradigms, protocols  Develop policies for dissemination of BIRN data to outside investigators

This Presentation  Background on Issues Authorship Inventions NIH Policies for Proposals Technology (Software) Licenses and Examples  Open Discussion

Harvard Authorship Policies (Motivation)  Authorship Substantial and Direct Intellectual Contributions Intellectual Responsibility Review and Approve Final Manuscript  Acknowledgement All Other Significant Contributions (Funding, Lab Space, etc.) 

BIRN Authorship Policies  Vary by Testbed Consortium as (Senior) Author  FIRST BIRN most consistent, Some Cross-Testbed Examples  Grethe JS, Jovicich J, Martone ME, Pieper S, Brown GG, Ellisman MH, Gollub RL, Brain Morphometry BIRN, Mouse BIRN, FIRST BIRN, BIRN Coordinating Center (2003) The Biomedical Informatics Research Network: Educational and Teaching Resources. Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, New Orleans, USA.  Acknowledge BIRN and Individual Grants Example  The authors would like to thank all the past and current Slicer developers. Special thanks to David Gering, Lauren O’Donnell and Nicole Aucoin for significant design and engineering contributions. This investigation was supported by NIH grant P41 RR13218 and the Biomedical Informatics Research Network ( Question: Should ALL Site’s Grants be Acknowledged?

Invention Policies (Patents)  Partners / BHW Corporate Sponsored Research and Licensing No Up-Front Agreement on Patents Intellectual Property Law Provides Ample Precedent to Determine Inventorship Wait Until Something Worth Patenting is Invented, then Determine who Invented it and to what Extent. Each Inventor’s Interests may be Governed by Prior Agreements with their Institutions  NSF ERC Consortium as Example Much Time can be Spent Defining Rules which Don’t Apply in Practice

NIH Policies and BIRN Proposals  Morphometry BIRN Letter of Intent to Share Signed by Each Applicant Site NIH Requirement: The applicant and all Investigators, with their business officials, must provide assurances of their intention to share promptly and widely with the broad research community, as appropriate: data; tools, including software and databases; and scientific and technologic best practices and processes developed in the test bed, including those in collaboration with other BIRN test beds and the Coordinating Center. NIH Requirement: The applicant must agree to develop, with the other test beds and the Coordinating Center, policies and procedures that facilitate access by the scientific community to the BIRN infrastructure and test bed resources.  Some Issues: Does not Specify License Type or Cost of License

Software Licenses  Open Source Gnu Public License (  “Copyleft”, must distribute source code, must distribute modifications  E.g. Linux “Berkeley” Style or “MIT” or “X” License  No Copyleft, preferred to enable commercialization Non-Commercial Licenses  Common for research packages Non-Clinical Licenses  Limit liability, e.g. Slicer  Binary Only Licenses

Copyright  Reflects Ownership and Control Happens Automatically with Creation Should be Noted on Creation (e.g. This Talk is Copyright 2004 Steve Pieper, All Rights Reserved!) Can be Registered with Trademark Office  Can Be Transferred or Retained E.g. Many Bug Fixes to Linux Become Copyright Linus Torvalds, other Modules Retain Author Copyright Contributions to VTK Become Copyright Ken Martin, Will Schroeder, Bill Lorensen NLM ITK Project Established the Insight Consortium as Copyright Holder

Example: Morphometry BIRN Tools  Freely Available For Research Use ToolPurposeSource Code Restrictions on Use Web Site 3D SlicerVisualization, Protocol Neutral Segmentation, Query Atlas YesNon-clinical use only FreesurferProtocol-Specific Segmentation NoNon-clinical, non- commercial research only LDDMMMorphometric and DTI Shape Analysis NoMust be accessed through JHU or BIRN Portal LONI PipelineGrid Enabled Processing Environment NoNon-clinical, non- commercial research only oftware/Pipeline.html Duke/UNC ToolsProtocol Neutral and DTI processing YesResearch Use only html

Discussion Issues  Jointly Developed Software BIRN ID Generator Example Non-Software IP: paradigms, schemata, derived data…  Pre-Existing / Contributed IP From other Grants / Agencies / Companies… Ongoing Coopetition  Use by Other Entities Commercialization, Citation, Copyleft? What is Our Process for Approving  And More….

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