The three conditions that decide whether your class project belongs to you or to Purdue.

Builder's Brief

Issue 11 | September 15, 2026

1. Who Owns What You Build

Three conditions decide whether your class project is yours. By the end of this you will know which side of them you are standing on.

Purdue's default is broad. The University owns intellectual property that arises in the course of employment or enrollment, or through the use of University resources, under Policy I.A.1. Then comes the carve-out almost nobody reads.

Purdue has clarified that it claims no ownership of course-generated IP created by students, provided three things hold. The resources you used were routinely available to every student enrolled in that course. You were not paid by the University, whether from internal funds or a grant or contract. And there are no pre-existing obligations attached to the work. The full statement sits on the Office of Technology Commercialization site.

Read the second one again, because that is where founders get caught.

Getting paid changes your status. An hourly undergraduate research position, a TA line, a graduate assistantship, a project funded by a company or a federal agency. Once the work happens inside that arrangement, the carve-out stops applying and the default comes back.

anu, formerly Heliponix, is the version that went right. Scott Massey and Ivan Ball were undergraduates on a NASA-funded lab project at Purdue, growing lettuce in a controlled chamber. Massey drew up a concept for a home appliance, they built prototypes in his college apartment, and they filed their own provisional patent on a different design. Purdue's own write-up credits the student IP policy with making the company possible. It has since won federal grants and moved manufacturing to Evansville.

The line in that story is the one you need to draw in yours. Paid, funded work sits on one side. What you build on your own time, on your own machine, with resources anyone in the course could get, sits on the other. If you cannot say which side a given file is on, that is the problem, not the paperwork.

Sponsored course projects are the other trap. Capstone and Fusion Point teams often work with a company sponsor, and sponsors regularly want rights to what the team produces. That agreement exists in week one, whether or not anyone walked you through it.

Four things to do this week.

•     Open the syllabus for any course where you are building something real and find the IP paragraph. Purdue tells faculty the syllabus is where it belongs.

•     If it is not there, email the professor and ask in writing, before you build.

•     If you are paid for research, keep your own project separate. Own laptop, own repo, own hours.

•     If you think it is real, email OTC at otcip@prf.org and ask. They handle this daily and the conversation costs nothing.

I am not a lawyer and the policy language governs, not this newsletter. The point is that these questions are cheap in September and expensive in April, when a competition asks who owns the technology or an investor asks for an IP assignment.

The Burton D. Morgan competition, due September 27, already requires that your concept not be based on Purdue-owned IP. Somebody is asking.

So open one syllabus today and find the paragraph. If there is not one, send the email before your next class.

Ask the boring question in September.

Written by Nishant Nair

2. Build with On/Special: AI, Product & Growth Opportunities

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Two Part-Time Student Opportunities: Flexible schedules, real startup experience and meaningful resume experience.

 1) AI + Product Development: Build and test conversational AI capabilities, natural language understanding and new features.

 2) Sales + Growth: Help build the go-to-market motion by reaching small businesses and learning what drives adoption.

Beta Businesses Needed: Know a restaurant, salon, retailer, gym, pet business, contractor, coffee shop or other local business? On/Special is looking for beta testers to use the product and provide feedback. Participation is free, and beta businesses can continue using On/Special for free after paid plans launch.

Interested in a role or know a potential beta business? Reach out to jill@onspecial.app.

3. Founder Opportunities

Grainger Engineering Tech Startup Challenge  Deadline: today, September 14

•     Best for: Technical teams ready to pitch investors. Up to $200,000 in SAFEs, live at the Chicago Venture Summit on October 19 and 20.

Apply: https://landuyt.illinois.edu/programs/tech-startup-challenge

38th Burton D. Morgan Venture Concept Competition  Deadline: September 27, 11:59pm

•     Best for: Any Purdue student with a concept. $100,000 pool, roughly 25 teams win something, final on December 11.

Apply: business.purdue.edu/burton-d-morgan

Baylor New Venture Competition 2027  Deadline: October 1, 11:59pm CST

•     Best for: Teams of two to four with a real entity. Two page executive summary now, more than $200,000 in prizes at the April finals.

Apply: https://hankamer.baylor.edu/baugh-center/new-venture

Purdue Innovates Accelerator  Deadline: December 20

•     Best for: Purdue-connected startups with some traction. Three months, mentors, up to $100,000 invested as a SAFE.

Apply: https://purdueinnovates.org/incubator/accelerator/

NSF I-Corps, Great Lakes Hub  Deadline: rolling cohorts

•     Best for: Research-based teams testing whether a technology has a market. Regional course first, then a shot at the $50,000 national program.

Apply: https://greatlakesicorps.org/programs/national-nsf-i-corps/

Sources

Purdue Intellectual Property Policy I.A.1 | Purdue OTC: Student IP | Purdue Office of Research: IP FAQ | Purdue Polytechnic: IP policy and Heliponix

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