equity, intellectual-property, prototypingMy friends and I in college had to design an idea for a product that addresses a certain problem in society. We chose a topic and designed a solution that I believe would be pretty marketable. In other words, we had a startup idea.
From there, we developed a non-functional prototype- just a series of pictures that show the application’s logical flow and features. We did not code any software/application, but made a neat presentation that we showed to our instructors. No contracts were ever signed.
At the conclusion of the project, we thought about maybe furthering it, but ultimately nothing came out of that. We haven’t gotten together in 2 years.
If I’d like to further the idea, are my former classmates entitled to anything?
Each university will have its own guidelines for intellectual property.
As a student (particularly as an undergraduate), your project is not work for hire because you are the one paying the university. If anyone involved in the work is being paid by the university to perform the work, then the rights become clouded.
Most universities have a Tech Transfer office that can clear up some of these issues, but keep in mind that they are acting in the university’s interests, not yours. Speak with your instructor and possibly arrange to speak with the department - they may be able to simply sign off ownership, sometimes it is just that easy. If your startup is successful, the last thing you need is to run into IP issues down the road. These problems can kill fledgeling companies by incurring large legal fees.
There is an in-depth discussion on this topic at Academia:
https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/48480/36209
Whether your former classmates are entitled to anything is a very tricky question. I see two main questions: (1) whether working on a class project together creates any obligations, and (2) if there are any patentable ideas, who owns them.
For the first question, there are instances where people working together creates a de facto partnership. In this situation, courts may treat the relationship as a partnership and each partner owns a portion of the business. I have no idea whether working on a class project together could cause this type of result.
For the second question, if you came up with any patentable ideas, then each inventor owns any patent applications that are filed. So if you file patent applications, you may need to include some of your former classmates as inventors and they would be part owners of your patent, which would be undesirable. (If you do file a patent application, also make sure you understand the one year grace period which may apply since it has been two years).
In short, I think your best option is to contact your former classmates, and ask them to assign any ownership of the ideas to you (or your company) in exchange for something. Perhaps give them each 1% of your company. This way you have a clear path ahead.
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