Over the Christmas break I met a very interesting woman involved in intellectual property management and we got on to the subject of creating work and publishing. Under the Employment Act (1977) if an employee produces a piece of work, which is related to the purpose of their employment, the piece of work belongs to the employer. So any worksheets, guides, “how tos”, etc. that one may make is intellectual property (IP) of the employer. If teachers and anybody connected with GLOW, decide to put material on GLOW for anybody to see, advice and permission should to be sought from the employer prior to publishing.
Local authorities need to publish guidelines as to what can be posted on GLOW. Every authority in Scotland has produced material to help teachers. There are Art Packs, Maths Planners, P.E. Guidelines, the list goes on. Before GLOW gets fully up and running for open access, there should be a document produced by authorities giving guidance to teachers and anybody else about what can be posted, advertised and downloaded for public consumption. Teachers, themselves, have of course produced a lot of useful material. I think we need advice.
4 responses so far ↓
1
Robert Jones
// Jan 14, 2007 at 4:29 pm
Interesting…. I can’t find any reference on-line to an Employment Act 1977 for the UK or Scotland. Not that I’m trying to question your contact’s information – I just wanted to find chapter and verse on it. Can anyone help?
2
Ewan McIntosh
// Jan 14, 2007 at 7:51 pm
In the guidelines we finalise tomorrow for East Lothian Council (they were edited by the blogging community in LTS and in East Lothian beforehand) copyright of blogged material will belong to the blogger. This is an example we in LTS will be recommending Local Authorities take up.
From the point of view of someone who commissions work from around the country for the MFLE website in LTS, I’ve found a change in attitudes over the past two years. More and more Local Authorities see it makes sense to share freely and this, I think, will be the prevailing attitude, if not policy, once Glow kicks in.
3
alastairturnbull
// Jan 15, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Give me a couple od days and I will check it Robert.
4
Jim Henderson
// Jan 17, 2008 at 12:41 pm
The relevant section is section 39 of the Patents Act 1977
Employees’ inventions
39 Right to employees’ inventions(1)Notwithstanding anything in any rule of law, an invention made by an employee shall, as between him and his employer, be taken to belong to his employer for the purposes of this Act and all other purposes if—
(a)it was made in the course of the normal duties of the employee or in the course of duties falling outside his normal duties, but specifically assigned to him, and the circumstances in either case were such that an invention might reasonably be expected to result from the carrying out of his duties; or
(b)the invention was made in the course of the duties of the employee and, at the time of making the invention, because of the nature of his duties and the particular responsibilities arising from the nature of his duties he had a special obligation to further the interests of the employer’s undertaking.
(2)Any other invention made by an employee shall, as between him and his employer, be taken for those purposes to belong to the employee.
[F1(3)Where by virtue of this section an invention belongs, as between him and his employer, to an employee, nothing done—
(a)by or on behalf of the employee or any person claiming under him for the purposes of pursuing an application for a patent, or
(b)by any person for the purpose of performing or working the invention,
shall be taken to infringe any copyright or design right to which, as between him and his employer, his employer is entitled in any model or document relating to the invention.]
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