Faculty Researchers, Particularly in Scientific, Engineering, and Medical Programs

Reading Passage Question

Faculty researchers, particularly in scientific, engineering, and medical programs, often produce scientific discoveries and invent products or processes that have potential commercial value. Many (5) institutions have invested heavily in the administrative infrastructure to develop and exploit these discoveries, and they expect to prosper both by an increased level of research support and by the royalties from licensing those discoveries having (10) patentable commercial applications. However, although faculty themselves are unlikely to become entrepreneurs, an increasing number of highly valued researchers will be sought and sponsored by research corporations or have consulting contracts with (15) commercial firms. One study of such entrepreneurship concluded that “if universities do not provide the flexibility needed to venture into business, faculty will be tempted to go to those institutions that are responsive to their commercialized desires.” There is (20) therefore a need to consider the different intellectual property policies that govern the commercial exploitation of faculty inventions in order to determine which would provide the appropriate level of flexibility. (25) In a recent study of faculty rights, Patricia Chew has suggested a fourfold classification of institutional policies. A supramaximalist institution stakes out the broadest claim possible, asserting ownership not only of all intellectual property produced by faculty in the (30) course of their employment while using university resources, but also for any inventions or patent rights from faculty activities, even those involving research sponsored by non university funders. A maximalist institution allows faculty ownership of inventions that (35) do not arise either “in the course of the faculty’s employment [or] from the faculty’s use of university resources.” This approach, although not as all encompassing as that of the supramaximalist university, can affect virtually all of a faculty (40) member’s intellectual production. A resource-provider institution asserts a claim to faculty’s intellectual product in those cases where “significant use” of university time and facilities is employed. Of course, what constitutes significant use of resources is a (45) matter of institutional judgment.

As Chew notes, in these policies “faculty rights, including the sharing of royalties, are the result of university benevolence and generosity. [However, this] presumption is contrary to the common law, (50) which provides that faculty own their inventions.”

Others have pointed to this anomaly and, indeed, to the uncertain legal and historical basis upon which the ownership of intellectual property rests. Although these issues remain unsettled, and though universities (55) may be overreaching due to faculty’s limited knowledge of their rights, most major institutions behave in the ways that maximize university ownership and profit participation.

But there is a fourth way, one that seems to be (60) free from these particular issues. Faculty-oriented institutions assume that researchers own their own intellectual products and the rights to exploit them commercially, except in the development of public health inventions or if there is previously specified (65) “substantial university involvement.” At these institutions industry practice is effectively reversed, with the university benefiting in far fewer circumstances.

‘Faculty researchers, particularly in scientific engineering’ is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 4 comprehension questions.

The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed for the purpose of testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Questions and Solutions

1. Which one of the following most accurately summarises the main point of the passage?

(A) While institutions expect to prosper from increased research support and royalties from patentable products resulting from faculty inventions, if they do not establish clear-cut policies governing ownership of these inventions, they run the risk of losing faculty to research corporations or commercial consulting contracts.
(B) The fourfold classification of institutional policies governing exploitation of faculty inventions is sufficient to categorize the variety of steps institutions are taking to ensure that faculty inventors will not be lured away by commercial firms or research corporations.
(C) To prevent the loss of faculty to commercial firms or research corporations, institutions will have to abandon their insistence on retaining maximum ownership of and profit from faculty inventions and adopt the common-law presumption that faculty alone own their inventions.
(D) While the policies of most institutions governing exploitation of faculty inventions seek to maximize university ownership of and profit from these inventions, another policy offers faculty greater flexibility to pursue their commercial interests by regarding faculty as the owners of their intellectual products.
(E) Most institutional policies governing exploitation of faculty inventions are indefensible because they run counter to common-law notions of ownership and copyright, but they usually go unchallenged because few faculty members are aware of what other options might be available to them.

2. Which one of the following most accurately characterizes the author’s view regarding the institutional intellectual property policies of most universities?

(A) The policies are in keeping with the institution’s financial interests.
(B) The policies are antithetical to the mission of a university.
(C) The policies do not have a significant impact on the research of faculty.
(D) The policies are invariably harmful to the motivation of faculty attempting to pursue research projects.
(E) The policies are illegal and possibly immoral.

3. Which one of the following institutions would NOT be covered by the fourfold classification proposed by Chew?

(A) an institution in which faculty own the right to some inventions they create outside the institution
(B) an institution in which faculty own all their inventions, regardless of any circumstances, but grant the institution the right to collect a portion of their royalties
(C) an institution in which all inventions developed by faculty with institutional resources become the property of the institution
(D) an institution in which all faculty inventions related to public health become the property of the institution
(E) an institution in which some faculty inventions created with institutional resources remain the property of the faculty member

4. The passage suggests that the type of institution in which employees are likely to have the most uncertainty about who owns their intellectual products is the

(A) commercial firm
(B) supramaximalist university
(C) maximalist university
(D) resource-provider university
(E) faculty-oriented university

5. According to the passage, what distinguishes a resource-provider institution from the other types of institutions identified by Chew is its

(A) vagueness on the issue of what constitutes university as opposed to non university resources
(B) insistence on reaping substantial financial benefit from faculty inventions while still providing faculty with unlimited flexibility
(C) inversion of the usual practices regarding exploitation of faculty inventions in order to give faculty greater flexibility
(D) insistence on ownership of faculty inventions developed outside the institution in order to maximise financial benefit to the university
(E) reliance on the extent of use of institutional resources as the sole criterion in determining ownership of faculty inventions

6. The author of the passage most likely quotes one study of entrepreneurship in lines 16–19 primarily in order to

(A) explain why institutions may wish to develop intellectual property policies that are responsive to certain faculty needs
(B) draw a contrast between the worlds of academia and business that will be explored in detail later in the passage
(C) defend the intellectual property rights of faculty inventors against encroachment by the institutions that employ them
(D) describe the previous research that led Chew to study institutional policies governing ownership of faculty inventions
(E) demonstrate that some faculty inventors would be better off working for commercial firms

7. The passage suggests each of the following EXCEPT:

(A) Supramaximalist institutions run the greatest risk of losing faculty to jobs in institutions more responsive to the inventor’s financial interests.
(B) A faculty-oriented institution will make no claim of ownership to a faculty invention that is unrelated to public health and created without university involvement.
(C) Faculty at maximalist institutions rarely produce inventions outside the institution without using the institution’s resources.
(D) There is little practical difference between the policies of supramaximalist and maximalist institutions.
(E) The degree of ownership claimed by a resource-provider institution of the work of its faculty will not vary from case to case.

Suggested GMAT Reading Comprehension Questions

• JIT stands for Just-In-Time. More than a standardized methodology or systematic process, it is a philosophy
• Seeking a competitive advantage, some professional service firms
• The pioneers of the teaching of science imagined that its introduction into education would remove the conventionality, artificiality, and backward-lookingness
• Because no employee wants to be associated with bad news in the eyes of a superior
• According to a survey of graduating medical students conducted by Association of American Medical College
• But man is not destined to vanish. He can be killed, but he cannot be destroyed, because his soul is deathless and his spirit is irrepressible.
• Josh has twenty years of typing experience behind him
• A major network news organization experienced a drop in viewership in the week
• Between 1980 and 2000 the sea otter population of the Aleutian Islands declined precipitously.
• Traditional Social Science Models of Class Groups in the United States are Based on Economic Status
• Discussion of greenhouse effects have usually had as a focus the possibility of Earth growing warmer
• Doctors in Britain have long suspected that patients who wear tinted eyeglasses are abnormally prone to depression and hypochondria.
• Few of the corporate contributions to the earthquake relief fund, aside from Pterocom
• Irrigation runoff from neighboring farms may well have increased the concentration of phosphorus in the local swamp above previous levels
• A new medication for migraine seems effective, but there is concern that the medication might exacerbate heart disease.
• If the books have been cataloged last week, why haven’t they been placed on the shelf?
• New Observations about the Age of Some Globular Clusters in Our Milky Way Galaxy
• French cuisine is highly regarded all over the world.
• The Marison County Police Department recently implemented a new traffic safety program
• Until recently most astronomers believed that the space between the galaxies in our universe was a near-perfect vacuum