## Facts

- Jose Molinelli-Freytes and other University of Puerto Rico (UPR) professors claimed they authored an original manuscript proposing an academic program (the “Proposal”).
- The professors alleged they created the Proposal during nonworking hours while employed by UPR and that they held a duly registered copyright in the work.
- The professors alleged that the Puerto Rico Council on Higher Education approved, and UPR implemented, an unauthorized modified version of the Proposal by launching a master’s and doctoral program based on it.
- UPR responded that the Proposal belonged to the university because it was a “work made for hire” prepared by employees within the scope of their employment.
- The professors moved for a preliminary injunction to stop implementation of the program.
- After seven days of hearings, the court denied preliminary injunctive relief, but stated that a legal question remained: whether a “teacher exception” to work for hire exists under the Copyright Act of 1976.
- The court ordered additional briefing on the teacher-exception question to narrow the issues for trial in the pending copyright infringement action.

## Issues

1. Under the Copyright Act of 1976, does a categorical “teacher exception” exist that automatically vests copyright ownership of faculty-created academic works in the professor rather than the university employer?
2. If no categorical teacher exception applies, must ownership be analyzed under the 1976 Act’s work-for-hire framework, including whether the work was prepared by an employee within the scope of employment and whether any agreement or institutional policy allocates rights?

## Decision

- The court declined to recognize an across-the-board “teacher exception” that would remove faculty works from the 1976 Act’s statutory definition of “work made for hire.”
- The court concluded that the 1976 Act supplies the governing rules on authorship and ownership, and that courts should not add a free-standing exception not found in the statutory scheme.
- The court indicated that prior references to a teacher exception in pre-1976 authorities did not control ownership under the 1976 Act’s framework.
- The court explained that the parties’ arrangements—such as written agreements or university intellectual property policies—may matter to ownership, but they operate as agreements or evidence of intent, not as an independent federal “teacher exception.”
- The opinion resolved the legal question about the teacher exception for purposes of the litigation, leaving the fact-bound work-for-hire and ownership questions for later proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- The 1976 Copyright Act provides a detailed definition of “work made for hire,” including works prepared by an employee within the scope of employment; absent an agreement to the contrary, the employer is treated as the author for such works.
- Federal copyright law supplies the controlling rules on authorship and ownership for works within its subject matter; courts generally may not create common-law ownership exceptions that override the statute’s allocation rules.
- Pre-1976 discussions of a “teacher exception” under the 1909 Act do not, by themselves, establish a continuing, categorical exception under the 1976 Act.
- Determining whether an employee created a work within the “scope of employment” is a fact-specific inquiry guided by agency principles (including the kind of work the employee was hired to do, whether the creation occurred within authorized time and space limits, and whether the work served the employer’s interests).
- University policies or other writings may allocate or confirm ownership by agreement, but they are analyzed as contractual or policy-based allocations rather than as a general, automatic rule that professors always own their academic output.

## Conclusion

*Molinelli-Freytes* held that the 1976 Copyright Act does not contain a categorical teacher exception that automatically assigns faculty-created academic manuscripts to professors; instead, ownership must be determined under the statute’s work-for-hire framework and any applicable agreements or institutional policies, with remaining factual disputes reserved for later stages of the case.


Molinelli-Freytes v. University of Puerto Rico, 792 F. Supp. 2d 164 (2010)