Ohio's state government has launched Ohio IP Promise, a standard set of intellectual property guidelines for academic research in the state.
A new scheme is being launched by the state of Ohio to build confidence in the intellectual property policies of local academic institutions, Cleveland.com has reported.
The program, dubbed Ohio IP Promise, will recommend IP guidelines for Ohio’s 14 public universities in addition to private-sector schools University of Dayton and Case Western Reserve University.
Ohio’s state government will also explore signing up Ohio’s medical research institutions to the initiative at a later date.
Ohio IP Promise members could be asked to publish the guidelines on their website in order to provide greater transparency and reassure more researchers their inventions will be treated fairly.
The framework was designed with input from partners including University of Cincinnati and Ohio State University, two institutions with existing commercialisation policy frameworks.
Jon Husted, lieutenant governor of Ohio state, argued the move enhanced the credibility of Ohio’s academic sector, adding that it might result in more skilled young people staying local in a boost to the state economy.
Husted told Cleveland.com: “Doing things the way we had always done them was not working… and now many of the universities who are not players in this space are going to become players, and those who were players are going to become better.”
