Projects

COPYRIGHT OWNERSHIP OF MEDICAL DATA IN COLLABORATIVE COMPUTING ENVIRONMENTS

Summary

This project develops a UK-based ownership model premised on intellectual property rights (IPR) for the sharing of digitised data of breast imaging and associated data in a collaborative computing environment. It evaluates various IPR ownership models existing in the UK and uses e-DiaMonD (www.ediamond.ox.ac.uk) as a case study of an ownership model already collecting such data. This work studies the relationship between medical practice, scientific research, industrial innovation, and the law. A central question is whether ownership and control of such data should be placed in the hands of the UK government, patients, hospitals, medical professionals or some other entity.

Our research objectives are as follows:

To develop a UK-based intellectual property rights (IPR) ownership model for the sharing of digitised medical data, such as those associated with breast imaging, in a collaborative computing environment. To evaluate various IPR ownership models existing in UK collaborative computing environments.
To uncover and test the viability of current IPR ownership models in collaborative computing environments involving the sharing of medical data such as that employed in the eDiaMoND project (www.ediamond.ox.ac.uk). To propose the most promising IPR ownership model for the sharing of digitised data of breast imaging. To develop and communicate an understanding of how an IPR ownership model may affect medical practice, scientific research, and industrial innovation.

The investigators will conduct fieldwork on e-DiaMonD collaborators in business, universities, hospitals and current patients groups and ethics committees. In doing so, the investigators will assess how these groups address issues of IPR ownership, related concerns of privacy and ethics, and how patients respond to this. The aim is therefore to find the best ownership model to meet the needs of all parties involved and of UK society at large. A solution may involve changing the law, changing the technical means by which the data are collected, or both.

The project will run for a year from the end of 2004.

Publications

Hinds, C., Jirotka, M., Rahman, M., D'Agostino, G., Meyer, C., Piper, T. & Vaver, D. "Ownership of Intellectual Property Rights in Medical Data in Collaborative Computing Environments", First International Conference on eSocial Science, June 2005, Manchester, UK.

D'Agostino, G., Hinds, C., Jirotka, M., Meyer, C., Piper, T. & Vaver, D. "On the Importance of Intellectual Property Rights for eScience and Integrated Health Record" (2006) forthcoming in Integrated Healthcare Workshop, Edinburgh, UK.

D'Agostino, G., Hinds, C., Jirotka, M., Meyer, C., Piper, T. & Vaver, D. "Ownership of Intellectual Property Rights in Medical Data in Collaborative Computing Environments", (2006) forthcoming in KnowRight Conference, Vienna, Austria.