When you publish with INCOSE, you maintain important rights to your work while enabling us to serve as the professional publisher and steward of the scholarly record in systems engineering.
INCOSE may receive copyright or an exclusive license to your specific publication. This enables us to publish, protect, and preserve the version of record. You keep authorship and moral rights. You keep your patents, trademarks, research data, and the freedom to build on your ideas.
Intellectual Property (IP) is a broad term covering several types of legal protections:
Copyright protects the written expression of ideas in works like articles, papers, books, and software code. Copyright automatically exists from the moment you create a work—no registration is required.
When you enter a publishing agreement with INCOSE, you are only transferring or licensing the copyright to your specific work, nothing else.
For papers published in INCOSE conference proceedings (International Symposium, regional conferences, workshops), authors typically retain copyright and grant INCOSE a non-exclusive license to publish and distribute the work.
With conference proceedings, you retain significant flexibility:
Copyright Ownership:
All Previous Rights, PLUS:
While INCOSE's non-exclusive license permits you to publish elsewhere, you should not submit the same work simultaneously to multiple venues, and you must disclose prior conference publication to journal editors.
INCOSE's Expectation:
Why the Difference?
Conference proceedings capture work-in-progress and facilitate rapid knowledge sharing within the community. The non-exclusive license allows maximum flexibility for authors to develop their work further while allowing INCOSE to create a valuable conference record.
For technical publications produced by, or within, INCOSE including journal articles, book chapters, technical reports, and standards documents, authors typically transfer copyright to INCOSE.
Even when transferring copyright, you retain extensive rights:
Moral Rights (Permanent & Non-Transferable):
Intellectual Property Rights:
Note on Accepted Manuscripts: The “accepted manuscript” is your final peer-reviewed version before INCOSE’s formatting and typesetting. There may be a brief embargo period (typically 6–12 months) before posting publicly. Check your specific agreement or contact us for details.
Bottom Line: You remain the author and expert. INCOSE becomes the professional publisher and rights manager for this specific publication, allowing you to focus on your research while we handle publishing, protection, and preservation.
These are the official guidelines for INCOSE product use.
If you have questions about translations of the Systems Engineering Handbook v5, please email: [email protected]
No. The transfer or license applies to the copyrighted paper. Your patents, trademarks, data, and ideas remain yours.
Always. Your moral right to be identified as the author can never be transferred and is protected in perpetuity.
The practical hasn't changed. We've updated our agreement language to meet modern scholarly publishing standards and provide greater clarity, but what you've always been able to do with your work remains the same.
This enables us to act as the professional publisher—distributing your work widely, protecting it from misuse, maintaining it permanently, and handling the administrative burden of managing rights and permissions on your behalf.
Yes. You may share your work with colleagues and students for professional and educational purposes.
Yes. For technical publications, you may post the accepted manuscript version (typically after any embargo period). For conference proceedings, you may post the final version immediately.
Yes. You may reuse your own material in future works. Simply cite the original INCOSE publication properly.
Absolutely. You may present your work in any educational or professional setting.
Yes. This is standard academic practice and is always permitted.
Yes. You own the research and ideas. INCOSE only has rights to the specific written expression in the published paper.
You may submit a substantially expanded and revised version to a journal, but you must disclose the prior conference publication to the journal editor during submission.
Submitting the identical paper would be self-plagiarism/duplicate publication, which violates scholarly ethics. Always cite your conference paper in the new submission and be transparent with editors.
For technical publications, third parties should contact INCOSE for permission. For conference proceedings where you retained copyright, they should contact you directly (though we appreciate being informed).
For technical publications, commercial use typically requires permission from INCOSE, which we handle on your behalf. For conference proceedings, you control these rights.
We actively monitor for unauthorized use, maintain the authoritative version of record, and take action against infringement when necessary.
The accepted manuscript is your final peer-reviewed text before INCOSE's professional formatting. The version of record is the final published version with INCOSE's layout, branding, and formatting.
Some agreements may require waiting a brief period (e.g., 6–12 months) before posting your accepted manuscript publicly. This allows the published version to be the primary version available initially. Check your specific agreement for details.
No. Copyright exists automatically when you create an original work. Registration is not required in most countries, though it may provide additional legal benefits in some jurisdictions.