CopyrightGraduation theses are among the works protected by the Law on Copyright (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” (cfr. App. Perugia, 22 February 1995, in Pluris database). 

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.    

Creative Commons licenses help authors retain the right to economically exploit their own creative work while allowing others to use it free of charge under certain terms. Thanks to these licenses the author establishes an agreement with his/her users: the authorship of the work is clearly acknowledged, but at the same time the work can be disseminated and shared. The traditional copyright system prescribed by the law establishes that work cannot be used without permission of the author, while Creative Commons licenses allow certain types of uses.   
These licenses facilitate the sharing process of work. They use clear language that even search engines can easily understand and help authors clarify which rights they want to transfer to their users. When authors choose a Creative Commons License, they retain copyright but offer the community some exclusive rights that are normally reserved to authors by copyright law.   
If you choose to release your work with a Creative Commons License which includes the “non-commercial” attribution, you require the users of your work (licensees) not to use it for commercial purposes. In any case, the creator (who owns the rights to the work covered by the license) can decide to use his/her work for commercial purposes at any time.   

We suggest you release your thesis with a CC BY-NC-ND license: this license limits the use that potential readers can make of your work since they can’t change it in any way nor use it commercially.   

We remind you that:

• your thesis must not include any part covered by copyright and used without the explicit permission of the author. It must not include personal and sensitive data, any other confidential data or information protected by an industrial secret. 
• If your thesis contains a reference to any discoveries or ideas which are going to be patented in the future, you need to postpone the dissemination or publication of your thesis until the patent has been registered. After filing your patent application, you must place your thesis under an 18-month embargo.

The results of a research activity carried out by a student for his/her thesis project can be worth being protected by 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 accept these Regulations when they enrol in a degree programme at Politecnico and they must abide by these rules. The Regulations of Politecnico di Torino on Industrial and Intellectual Property Rights are available on the Politecnico website.

Theses containing patentable results, software or works of industrial design If your thesis contains results that are susceptible of patent protection, first of all, you must verify with your Supervisor if your thesis meets the requirements for patent protection of the invention. Then, you need to contact the competent Politecnico offices before your thesis oral defence. In addition to this, before submitting your thesis, you must request that the confidentiality of your thesis is preserved for a period of time sufficient to verify if it meets the requirements for patent protection and (eventually) to apply for a patent. 
We remind you that before applying for a patent you must keep your invention strictly confidential. In fact, any form of “pre-dissemination” (for example, during the thesis oral defence) invalidates the patentability of your findings. If your thesis includes software or works of industrial design, we recommend you inform the competent offices of Politecnico. 
Reference is made to the Regulations of Politecnico di Torino on Industrial and Intellectual Property Rights (issued with Rector’s Decree no. 299 of 22/072007) which regulate the ownership of Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights and illustrate the internal procedures.

Embargo   

When access to a thesis needs to be restricted for a certain period of time, you can apply for an embargo to be placed on public access to your thesis. In this case, the University will not publish nor disclose the contents of your thesis, including data and images contained in the document, except for metadata (name and last name, thesis title, etc.). 

During the embargo period, the thesis is kept in the institutional archives of the University and no public access to it is permitted; only metadata will be of public domain. 
As a general rule, an embargo period can last 12,18 or 36 months but you can apply for a longer embargo period. When the embargo period expires, your thesis will be released to open access, unless you request otherwise and justify your request for embargo extension.   
An embargo period can be granted if the request is duly justified, in particular in the following cases: 

• the necessity to avoid disclosure of thesis results which are susceptible of being patented in order to preserve the novelty requirements for the patent;
• confidentiality agreements or prior arrangements or contracts with outside organizations or companies;
• confidentiality and/or ownership of the results belonging to outside organizations or companies which have taken part in the research activity;
• publication;
• public security (if the content of the thesis can somehow threaten public or national security);
• privacy reasons (if the thesis is about a person who is still alive or has recently died and there is a risk of privacy violation).