When the Quebec Court of Appeal recently condemned one of Canada’s leading engineering schools to pay a researcher more than a half a million dollars for his share of revenues generated by an invention he co-invented, it marked the fourth case in less than a year that the courts mulled over the rights and obligations of a university over inventions made by its academic staff.
In an intellectual property case that will likely catch the attention of the Canadian IP and legal community, the Quebec appeal court held that Mohammed Ali Fardad was entitled to $715,000, plus interest, after it found that the intellectual property policy formulated by École Polytechnique de Montréal (EPM) applied not only to inventors who are its employees but also to inventors who use the school’s resources or services.
“It’s an important case for university researchers and scientists who don’t necessarily deal with contracts and negotiations as it tells them that they do have rights and that they are entitled to financial benefits from the product of their work,” noted Robert Kugler of Kugler Kandestin, L.L.P. in Montreal who successfully represented Fardad. Continue reading “Researcher awarded $700,000 in intellectual property rights case”