Duke OTC strongly encourages and actively supports open licensing of COVID-19 related software, content, and databases/data sets that were generated/developed underfunded R&D, innovation, QI/QA activities, or employee-related duties (including paid students) at Duke University and Duke Health.
Towards this end, researchers, developers, and innovators at Duke are not required to file innovation disclosures with the Office of Translation and Commercialization unless they strongly feel that software/content /data set has commercial applications outside of COVID-19 response and they actively want to retain such rights or options for the future. In such cases, please file an online innovation disclosure with the Office of Translation and Commercialization and contact Dinesh Divakaran directly at dinesh.divakaran@duke.edu to discuss potential dual-licensing mechanisms that could make the software code/content/database/data openly available for COVID-19 response ASAP while also retaining commercialization options for the future.
Researchers, developers, and innovators at Duke are also strongly advised to be diligent and review the software, content, and databases/data that they intend to openly license for any third party material (including open source code, creative commons content/database, open data commons database/data) or PHI/human subject-related data, prior to choosing an open licensing mechanism for dissemination outside of Duke. In such cases, please see below for more detailed advice.
If you need more detailed information on intellectual property and licensing, please refer to our more comprehensive content on Digital Innovations.
For quick and open dissemination of software/content/data to researchers and clinicians, Duke OTC advises the following open licensing mechanisms:
COVID-19 related Software (Source Code/Object Code/Scripts etc.)
Software code is copyrightable and in a few limited cases could be protected by patents. Duke OTC advises Open Source licenses for open licensing of COVID-19 related software code. Open Source licenses are software licenses that comply with the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Definition — in brief, they allow software code to be freely used, modified and shared even for commercial purposes. Please note that Creative Commons (CC) or Open Data Commons (ODC) licenses are not an appropriate mechanism for open licensing of software code.
Developers are strongly advised to review the software code carefully for licensing diligence before choosing an open-source license. They should look for any third-party code (code from another university, RedCap, MyChart, vendor API code, vendor plugin code, etc.) or existing open-source code (code from the web, tensorflow, PyTorch, etc.). Also, databases/data sets for operating software (or for training AI/ML algorithms, etc.) and documentation (content) should be handled separately. Please see below for open licensing of databases/data sets and content. In the absence of third party code or existing open-source code and if the software code is not to be protected by patents, then developers are advised to list Duke University as the copyright owner and choose one of the following recommended open-source licenses to release the software:
If the software code contains third party code or existing open-source code or if the software code is or will be subject to any patent right filings or if the developers would like to use an open-source license not listed above (or other versions of the open-source licenses listed above) or if the developers have any questions, then developers are strongly encouraged to contact Dinesh Divakaran at dinesh.divakaran@duke.edu and/or David Chang at david.chang@duke.edu for assistance.
Duke as a copyright holder does not generally support copyleft Open Source licenses with implicit patent license grants like newer GPL versions like GPL 3.0 or LGPL 3.1. However, If developers would like to use such licenses, Duke OTC would consider requests to release copyright ownership to the developers so that they can use these Open Source licenses to release code under their personal copyright. Please contact Dinesh Divakaran at dinesh.divakaran@duke.edu and/or David Chang at david.chang@duke.edu for further assistance with such a request.
COVID-19 related Content (Audio/Videos/Articles/Presentations etc.)
Content created by authors is copyrightable. Duke OTC advises Creative Commons (CC) licenses for open licensing of COVID-19 related content. The CC licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. Please note that Open Source licenses and Open Data Commons Licenses are not appropriate mechanisms for open licensing of content.
Authors are strongly advised to review the content carefully for diligence before choosing a CC license. They should look for any third-party content/material (content or data from another university or company or person) or existing CC content. In the absence of any third-party content/data or existing creative commons content, the authors are advised to list Duke University as the copyright owner and choose one of the following CC licenses which are also recommended by Duke OTC:
Learn more about CC licensing, or use the CC license for your own material.
If the authors want to restrict derivative rights to the content like the right to modify or add to the database, then they could use the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. Duke OTC does not recommend using the non-commercial CC licenses for open licensing of COVID-19 related content as they could restrict use by certain researchers and clinicians.
If the content contains third party content/data or existing CC content or if the authors have any doubts/questions, then developers are strongly encouraged to contact Dinesh Divakaran at dinesh.divakaran@duke.edu and/or David Chang at david.chang@duke.edu for assistance.
COVID-19 related Databases/Data Sets
If your database/data set contains Patent Health Information (PHI) or human subject-related data or was collected/developed under IRB approved protocols or data collected during clinical care, please first contact IRB at the University or Compliance at the Health System for meeting data protection obligations including but not limited to HIPAA. Such data generally will need to be appropriately de-identified prior to any open release which will also need to be approved by the data licensing committee at Duke. After de-identification and approval from IRB or Compliance, please direct your requests for open release or open licensing of PHI or human subject-related data to Dinesh Divakaran at dinesh.divakaran@duke.edu and/or Robin Rasor at robin.rasor@duke.edu who will direct the request to the data licensing committee.
Please note that the advice below is only for databases or data sets that do not contain Patent Health Information (PHI) or human subject-related data or was collected/developed under IRB approved protocols or data collected during clinical care.
Databases that are creatively compiled (as an example training data for AI/ML) by data scientists/analysts may be copyrightable while simple data sets are not copyrightable. Duke OTC supports certain Creative Commons (CC) and Open Data Commons (ODC) licenses for open licensing of COVID-19 related databases/data sets including commercial use. Please note that Open Source licenses are not appropriate mechanisms for open licensing of databases/data sets.
Data Scientists/Analysts are strongly advised to review the data within the database/data sets for licensing diligence before choosing a CC or ODC license. They should look for any third-party data (data from another university or company or person or internet) or existing open data. In the absence of any third party data or existing open data, the data scientists/analysts are advised to list Duke University as the copyright owner on databases (data sets are not copyrightable) and choose one of the following CC or ODC licenses which are also recommended by Duke OTC:
Learn more about CC licensing, or use the CC license for your own material.
Learn more about ODC licensing.
If the data scientists/analysts want to restrict derivative rights to the database like the right to modify or add to the database, then they could use the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) license. Duke OTC does not recommend using the non-commercial CC licenses for open licensing of COVID-19 related databases as they could restrict use by certain researchers and clinicians.
If the data contains third party data or existing open data or if the authors have any doubts/questions, then developers are strongly encouraged to contact Dinesh Divakaran at dinesh.divakaran@duke.edu and/or Robin Rasor at robin.rasor@duke.edu.