Kudrycka: without financial incentives we cannot stimulate inventiveness
Granting scientists property rights to inventions should encourage them to contribute more effort to the work of inventions - said science minister Barbara Kudrycka on TVP Info. "Enfranchisement of scientists" is one of the assumptions of a draft amendment to the law on higher education.
"At the moment we have this duality - the copyrights belongs to scientists, and the property rights belong to the institutions in which they work, such as universities. Such solutions are used in many countries, but there are countries that have a completely different situation. Scientist privilege is in force in Sweden and Italy, but there are some countries such as Germany and Denmark, where it is the researcher’s decision whether to use property rights or not" - said Kudrycka.
"Scientist privilege" or "enfranchisement of scientists" is part of the proposed Ministry amendment to the Law on Higher Education. According to the draft amendment, which is now in public consultation, the author would be the owner of the property rights to the invention, and the parent institution would receive a share of the profits, as payment for the use of its facilities and human resources.
The project raises doubts in academic community.
President of the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland and rector of the University of Silesia Prof. Wiesław Banyś explained PAP that according to the new regulations, the employee would be entitled to the invention, and the university would be entitled to 10-25 percent profit in the case of the commercialisation of the invention.
"The university with a large number of inventions may not have the funds to cover costs of patent protection. We believe that the allocation of money from the profits should be at the discretion of universities" - he argued.
Rectors propose that universities - in their regulations on intellectual property - should determine, as previously, the percentage of profits that would go to the inventor. In the current intellectual property regulations it is usually 50 to 60 percent. "Instead of top-down control of these issues, let universities create optimal conditions for creative and innovative thinking and implementation in their regulations" - the rector believes.
According to the Minister of Science, after the planned changes, universities will still earn more on inventions than now, because there will be more innovation. The funds for patent protection can be obtained from the National Centre for Research and Development. " There are programs that help finance the patenting process. The ministry used to have the "Patent Plus" programme." Now, the National Centre for Research and Development has similar programs" - she explained.
She added that the regulations would still be revised based on the comments collected during the consultation. The Ministry of Science and Higher Education is of the opinion that the idea itself is right.
"Without this motivation we will not awaken the entrepreneurship in scientists" - emphasized Minister of Science.
PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland
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