Authors: A.A.Fuente, Universidad de Oviedo, Spain; A.Texeira, L.Morgado, Universidade Aberta, Portugal.
The general goal of this training material is to help teachers create academic materials while complying with the Intellectual Property (IP) laws, with licenses as the main point of interest. The focus is on Creative Commons (CC) licenses, as this licenses are probably the licenses of choice in the academic field.
Unit 1 introduces the main concepts needed to understand IP, including licenses. In Unit 2 we will learn about CC licenses and how to use them.
Unit 3 introduces additional IP concepts, as differences between countries in IP laws reside in these areas and they must be taken into account by the author of academic materials. These regional particularities are treated in Unit 4.
Creators of materials can use resources from others. In Unit 5 we will learn about the different types of resources that can be used, and a specific process to assure compliance with IP law when using these resources by checking the licenses. Unit 6 shows how to search for these resources considering the resource license.
The last unit is devoted to registration, which is usually the last thing done regarding IP when developing academic materials
Unit 1. Main concepts about Intellectual Property (IP) and licenses
1.2. Types of IP
In this section we will introduce the main forms of IP: patents and trademarks, and copyright (where academic materials belong).
1.2.1. Patents and trademarks
These are called sometimes “industrial property” in contrast to “intellectual property” which is the term used in some countries (and in this document) to refer to works subject to copyright (songs, novels, etc.).
Patents protect inventions, which have usually a physical expression (for example a security cap for a hypodermic needle). Trademarks refer to designs that identify products (for example a logo for a new product).
Industrial property has specific protection laws.
1.2.2. Copyright
Copyright protects the rest of the works. As mentioned before, this is sometimes referred as “Intellectual Property”.
Copyright is usually identified with the © sign