The first real exposé of how universities have trademarked,
copyrighted, branded, and patented everything they do.
Universities generate an enormous amount of intellectual property,
including copyrights, trademarks, patents, Internet domain names, and
even trade secrets. Until recently, universities often ceded ownership
of this property to the faculty member or student who created or
discovered it in the course of their research. Increasingly, though,
universities have become protective of this property, claiming it for
their own use and licensing it as a revenue source instead of allowing
it to remain in the public sphere. Many universities now behave like
private corporations, suing to protect trademarked sports logos,
patents, and name brands.
Yet how can private rights accumulation and enforcement further the
public interest in higher education? What is to be gained and lost as
institutions become more guarded and contentious in their orientation
toward intellectual property? In this pioneering book, law professor
Jacob H. Rooksby uses a mixture of qualitative, quantitative, and legal
research methods to grapple with those central questions, exposing and
critiquing the industry's unquestioned and growing embrace of
intellectual property from the perspective of research in law, higher
education, and the social sciences.
While knowledge creation and dissemination have a long history in higher
education, using intellectual property as a vehicle for rights staking
and enforcement is a relatively new and, as Rooksby argues, dangerous
phenomenon for the sector. The Branding of the American Mind points to
higher education's love affair with intellectual property itself, in all
its dimensions, including newer forms that are less tied to scholarly
output. The result is an unwelcome assault on the public's interest in
higher education.
Presuming no background knowledge of intellectual property, and ending
with a call to action, The Branding of the American Mind explores
applicable laws, legal regimes, and precedent in plain English, making
the book appealing to anyone concerned for the future of higher
education.
