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[floopydrive]

Say that I am a grad student and work as an RA for a professor and hit upon a brilliant invention. We decide to file for a patent... now who exactly owns the rights to the invention? My professor? Me? My school? Do students/professors get a cut from any licensing money made from their inventions?

[t_r_b]

I'm pretty sure it's the university. I know that my university holds a fair number of patents based on the discoveries and inventions of scientists over the years. Some of them are pretty lucrative.

[namazu]

Most institutions have formal policies and guidelines to address this issue. 

Here, for example, is some information from UCLA's Office of Intellectual Property website: http://www.research.ucla.edu/oipa/guides/

As you can see, the university may assert its role in managing/patenting/licensing the invention, but other stakeholders - collaborators from other universities or from industry, and funding agencies - may also be involved. 

I'd start by searching your institution's website, and contacting the relevant office or liaison to get the specifics that relate to your institution, invention, and funding/collaboration situation. 

[drapple]

In our shop (R1 PNW cow college), the deal is: University owns said IP. University gets 60%, with remainder split between the people listed on the disclosure to the IPO. Additionally, the first $10K earned from a successful licensing event is divided among the inventors, then the formula kicks in.  Be advised less than 1% of the "brilliant inventions" ever patented are commercially successful. Batelle, for example got the patent for Xerography from the guy who invented the process in his kitchen in Rochester NY, because all of the mimeograph compines laughed him out of the office!  Good luck, and keep thinking--that's what we're good for!

[drapple]

Actually it's "mimeograph companies",oops!

[redburn]

We had to sign a patent agreement that gave the university rights to anything we developed as students - but our names, we were told, would remain on the patent.

[octoprof]

Most institutions have formal policies and guidelines to address this issue.

There's the rub. You need to know the terms of your employment.

[kissa_mau]

It depends on the university and the specifics of their policy. At my university, your thesis work is your own and you own it. But if you did that work under a grant (on an RA from your professor), the university gets a cut of everything. Everything that has even a slight chance of making money has to go through the intellectual property office.

I had to go through mandatory training for this stuff, where I learned that our lovely university does make an enormous amount of money off of intellectual property and they seem to want more so you'd better file your papers, blah, blah. It was educational.

[runningthegoodrace]

This question, as others have noted, turns on your particular institution's policy on intellectual policy rights. If you are talking patent law (i.e., an invention), then the policy(/contract) is will govern. In copyright law (i.e., protecting the written expression, but NOT the ideas therein), there is a doctrine known as "work for hire." If your institution did not have a policy regarding its graduate students'/professors' IP, then all the intellectual property produced in connection with University work would belong to the University. Nearly every institution, however, has an IP policy; that said, you should consult your University's policy.