Need Help: legal issues about my work

[scsc]

Dear All:

I am a Ph.d student. Finished my dissertation defense, and waiting for graduation.

My graduate adviser asked all the codes I wrote for my project to be sent to her, before I move to another institution.

All the equipment and data belong to her, but the codes are purely from my own thoughts, she didn't give any help.

She'd threaten me if not give her the codes, I will be charged for some illegal issue and misdemeanor.

My question is: does the codes belong to my adviser, should I give them to her?

If someone could kindly provide some documents or links to address this legal issue, please help me. Thank you.

[BassAZ]

You should talk to the graduate office about the issue of patents and intellectual property (most schools have their own office of intellectual property as well) but in general all that you do, publish, etc. is the property of the school (basically anything you do for your boss while you're in school). While you are allowed to keep a copy of your own work, the actual rights and information belong to the school - I'm not even sure under the strictest interpretation that your boss would own the codes.

As for documentation, I'm not sure if schools do it differently - I'll see if I can dig up some documentation. I still think if they publish anything or patent anything using it, you should get recognition + some kind of compensation but you cannot keep the code for yourself and cut them out of the loop.

[ktel]

Every university has their own policy towards how intellectual property is treated. Like BassAZ said, you can speak to your graduate office regarding this. Some schools ensure that all IP is only yours, but most don't. If the IP becomes profitable, the money is often split, for example my undergrad policy was 1/3 to you, 1/3 to your advisor, 1/3 to the school.