Office of Origin: Academic Affairs
Responsibility: Provost & Vice President of Academic Affairs        
Date Adopted: 3-29-22
Dates Reviewed: 3-29-22
Last Date Board Approved: 3-29-22    

Lake Michigan College (the College) encourages innovation in teaching and learning at the College. The academic prestige of the College will be enhanced through the generation of Intellectual Property by its employees, as evidence of scholarly expertise.

“Intellectual property” means any material, process, or product, whether or not patentable or copyrightable, developed by an employee including, but not limited to, inventions, textbooks, lecture presentations, articles, reviews, artistic work, musical compositions, and other such creatively produced materials, processes, or products.

College Claims on Proprietary Interests

1. Employees will retain ownership of all Intellectual Property that they develop, except for Intellectual Property that was developed specifically as part of a compensated duty or responsibility. 
2. The College owns any Intellectual Property that was developed as part of a College-compensated duty or responsibility. 
3. Course material updates are owned by the College. 
4. Employees will have the right to publish College-owned Intellectual Property that they developed with the permission of their supervisor.
5. An employee may, outside the scope of the employee’s primary duties, specifically contract with the College to produce Intellectual Property to be owned by the employee and/or copyright/patent holders other than the College. 
6. If the employee receives additional compensation from the College equivalent to at least 3 contact hours, or receives support services from the College (e.g., copying, recording, graphics, production, etc.) valued at more than $400 in the course of developing the Intellectual Property, the employee will reimburse the College for the compensation and/or the value of the services received. The College may claim a proprietary interest in the Intellectual Property until reimbursement is received. 
7. Where the College has provided additional compensation or support services, regardless of if the employee reimburses the College, the College:
   
   1. will retain the right to use that which was developed, without payment to the employee and/or copyright/patent holder.
   2. may distribute such Intellectual Property to other institutions for the purpose of demonstration and review. The College will obtain written consent of the author for external distribution for any other reason.
   3. may be housed and used as other materials.
   4. will receive 20% of the net profits of all sales.

Other Provisions

• The employee producing the Intellectual Property will be acknowledged as the author and appropriated credits will be given to all primary and support personnel. The author must identify themselves as an employee of the College.
• If production of Intellectual Property is supported in whole or in part by a grant, the conditions of the grant will prevail. If no conditions are specified, the applicable portions of this policy will apply.
• It is the obligation of the author to make known the provisions of this policy and preserve the rights and provisions of this policy in any other agreements.
• The author may use Intellectual Property for professional activities such as workshops, etc. In cases where the College has gained proprietary rights, the author must preserve these. 
• The author retains the right to review recorded material to update or otherwise improve their quality or accuracy. If significant costs are associated with such changes, a separate agreement may be negotiated or, at the discretion of the College, the material may be removed from circulation.