More  information on Copyright and Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights is available in the Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees Final Examination Guidelines.

Graduation theses are among the works protected by Copyright law (Law no. 633 of 22/04/1941).  Article 1 states that “this law protects the  works of the mind having a creative character and belonging to literature, music, figurative arts, architecture, theatre, or cinematography, whatever the style or form of expression”.  Article 2 of the same law includes a list of non-exhaustive examples of protected subject matters and explicitly mentions scientific works among them. According to national jurisprudence a graduation thesis is a work of the mind which can be protected in accordance with copyright law.

Copyright law protects the style, not the idea, of a work. The style must have a particular degree of creativity and novelty. The student who has written the thesis is considered its author; therefore, he/she fully owns the moral and economic rights to it. 

The results of a research activity carried out by a student for his/her thesis project can be worth being protected  by Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights (for instance, a patent) or copyright (for example, software and works of industrial design).

The Regulations of Politecnico di Torino on Industrial and Intellectual Property Rights (issued with Rector’s Decree no. 299 of 22/07/2007) provide the regulatory framework adopted by the University in this field.

All students are required to get acquainted with these Regulations.