Control Matters: Intellectual Property and Electronic Files

Submitted by Alexander Freund, UWFA Grievance Officer 

From 11 to 13 December 2009, some fifty grievance officers and others involved in grievance processes at universities across Canada met in Ottawa to learn about the protection of intellectual property. The three-day CAUT workshop, Care, Custody and Control: Protecting Members’ Correspondence, Documents and Intellectual Property, introduced participants to a broad range of issues that have been disputed between universities and faculty associations and have even been taken to arbitration and the judicial process. Lisa McGifford and Alexander Freund represented UWFA, which was one of forty faculty associations present at the workshop.

Intellectual and legal ownership of documents and ideas has, over the last decade, moved to the centre of disputes between university administrations and faculty associations. At issue is the fundamental question of who owns the emails, syllabi, administrative files, research results, inventions, and other intellectual property created by faculty. This is especially important now as data networks (such as email systems and servers) are making it easier for employers to have access to this information. Do universities own the documents created by faculty members simply because, as university administrations have claimed, faculty are employees of the university?

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