Don’t let the robots win: Know how to protect higher ed IP in an AI world

Intellectual property is big business for higher education, with those two little letters, "IP," encompassing patents, trademarks, and copyrights, and representing potentially billions of dollars. For example, the relatively new name, image, and likeness market is worth an estimated $1 billion annually, according to Opendorse, with 20%, or $200 million, of that market coming from brand deals. By the nature of NIL, of course, the student‐athletes themselves get a cut of that money — but so do their schools. Indeed, in 2022, a startup company called OneTeam Partners teamed up with sports merch purveyor Fanatics to launch a college jersey program that saw the institutions of higher education taking a percentage of the action, which makes sense — those jerseys don’t just use the student‐athletes’ NIL; they use the schools’ valuable branding, too.