Further Information
This page is designed to give you a brief background to confidential information and intellectual property.
In reading this information, you should learn enough so you can identify the issue when it arises either:
- as part of your research or
- is raised by an external party who is providing either funding or resources to your research project.
1. Your thesis - dealing with confidentiality
In conducting your research, you may receive assistance or information from funding agencies and companies. The entity giving you that assistance or information may require certain restrictions on the publication of that information or of the research results or information produced in the project. Most of the time those restrictions are reasonable, but each request for restriction should be judged on its own merits.
All obligations which affect your thesis and its publication should be written down as part of the correspondence and agreements between you and those parties. Some entities are unused to dealing with the academic environment and may ask for restrictions which are unreasonable. UWA seeks to protect students in this area.
Practical steps can be taken to minimise any inconvenience which may be suffered as a result of confidentiality restrictions. Examples include:
- If a company requires you to get its consent before publishing your thesis, you should if possible send draft chapters to your company contact as those chapters are produced. This means that there should not be a significant delay at the end of the writing-up period while you wait for consent. In addition, keeping the company informed may assist you in your dealings with the company in relation to funding, employment and deadlines. Company contacts are frequently busy and quick approval of your whole thesis is often not realistic.
- Consider whether it is really necessary to actually include certain confidential information in your thesis.
- Alternatively, the data or confidential information may be presented in such a way that its confidential nature is still preserved. Specifics like names can sometimes have general labels substituted for them, without diminishing the value of the illustration that they may provide. Examples include research into the internal management of a company being publishable because the company is not identified, and research being published on an ore-body's structure where the location of the ore-body is not revealed.
- Confidential information may be separated off into a schedule or an appendix, so that the thesis may be examined in confidence but shall not be published with the schedule or appendix on it.
2. Intellectual property
The principal forms of intellectual property which may affect you (as well as the University and its staff) are patents and copyright.
2.1. Copyright
Copyright represents a bundle of rights which can be summarised as the right to reproduce other people's work. In the University environment, that work normally refers to written works and artistic works (like illustrations, charts and diagrams) and also includes software. Copyright also applies to other things like sound recordings, broadcasts and film and video works. This has important implications if you are working in multi-media.
The basic rule is that you may not copy any significant or important portion of work belonging to somebody else without that person's permission. Do not assume that because the material is on the internet that it is in the public domain.
Questions as to what quantities of material you may copy can be complex and you should seek advice on this if you are in doubt. The normal case is that the author of a work will own the copyright in it and this means that you will own the copyright in your thesis. The University regards this as important and takes steps to ensure that your copyright remains with you. If you do not own copyright in your own thesis, you become unable to copy it or publish it.
2.2. Patents
Patents are given for inventions. Inventions include both actual devices as well as industrial processes. This might therefore include both a new structure for a semi-conductor chip, as well as a more efficient process for refining ores. Importantly, patents are also granted for particular DNA sequences (in some circumstances) and more rarely are also granted for software provided it is of a completely new type or operation.
Patents are a very powerful way of protecting intellectual property and are therefore both highly sought after and vigorously enforced. It is possible to infringe the rights in another's patent even though you built the relevant thing or devised the relevant process yourself. The patent rights belong to the person who got to the patent office first, and therefore care should be taken.
If you believe you have a patentable process or device, you should seek advice from your supervisor or the Legal Services Office. It will be important to know whether any external funding body (whether government or company) has made any prior claim on inventions from the project they are funding. You should keep such obligations in mind at all times.
2.3. Other forms of intellectual property
Other forms of intellectual property include plant breeder's rights, circuit layout rights, trademarks, and registered designs. These forms of intellectual property do not arise within the University environment very often.
Plant breeder's rights are being increasingly used within the Faculty of Agriculture and are an important tool in protecting their research. If part of your work is the development of new and stable varieties of plants then again you should seek advice from your supervisor or:
- See the Intellectual property policy on the Legal Services website
- Queries should be directed to the Intellectual Property Solicitor
3. UWA's intellectual property policy
Intellectual property is dealt with according to the Intellectual Property Policy which is available on the web. You should also consult that document. Any queries in relation to the above should be directed to the Intellectual Property Solicitor.
4. Documentation and forms
Confidentiality Agreements
- See the Confidentiality Agreements for Evaluation Purposes on the Research and Research Training website
- See the Confidentiality Agreements for Staff, Students & Visiting Academics on the Legal Services website
Application for Restricted Access to Thesis
Intellectual property
