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Cedarville Students Could Graduate With More Than a Degree Through New AI + IP Stewardship Pilot.

Instant IP® initiative helps students identify, protect, and build portfolios of original intellectual property they can carry into the marketplace

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Cedarville AI + IP Stewardship Pilot

Helping Students, Faculty, and Staff Use AI with Discernment While Protecting Authorship, Creativity, and Intellectual Property

Purpose
Cedarville University has an opportunity to lead in one of the most important conversations in higher education: how to use artificial intelligence with wisdom, integrity, and discernment while respecting authorship, intellectual property, and appropriate attribution.
This pilot would provide a practical way to put Cedarville’s AI vision into action:
“We affirm that AI must be used with intellectual integrity, respecting authorship, intellectual property, and appropriate attribution.”
The goal is not to create fear around AI. The goal is to equip Cedarville students, faculty, and staff to steward God-given creativity wisely in an AI-enabled world.
This also fulfills Cedarville’s commitment that entrepreneurial thinking is not merely a major, it is a mindset. In today’s marketplace, every faculty member, student, and staff member is navigating an ever-changing world where creativity, innovation, problem solving, and intellectual property matter more than ever.

The Opportunity

Students, faculty, and staff are creating intellectual property every day: lesson plans, research ideas, songs, speeches, business concepts, engineering designs, presentations, curriculum, creative writing, art, frameworks, student projects, and entrepreneurial ideas.
While Cedarville’s internal AI tools may provide a secure environment, much of this creativity still happens in public or semi-public spaces: classrooms, online courses, music platforms, competitions, conferences, videos, podcasts, papers, apps, and AI-enabled devices.
 This pilot would help Cedarville become known as a university that is neither blindly anti-AI nor blindly pro-AI, but distinctly committed to AI with biblical discernment, intellectual integrity, and respect for creators.
 It is also in harmony with biblical stewardship. God calls us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. That includes the stewardship of our ideas, creativity, scholarship, and innovation. Protecting intellectual property is not about ego. It is about stewarding what God has entrusted to us with wisdom, excellence, and integrity.

Recommended Pilot

Launch a 90-day opt-in pilot. A potential name could be:
Cedarville AI + IP Stewardship Pilot
The pilot could begin with one of the following groups: 
  • Faculty and staff
  • Entrepreneurship students
  • Selected academic programs such as Business, Music, Engineering, Education, Communication, Art, and Writing
  • Or an opt-in group across campus
Each participant would receive a set number of free Instant IP® credits, such as 10 or 25, to protect original work.

About Instant IP®

Instant IP® is a patented blockchain and smart contract solution that creates a fast first layer of proof for original ideas and creative work.
The underlying technology is reflected in U.S. Patent No. 11,928,748, titled “Method and apparatus for scannable non-fungible token generation.” Public patent records list Kary Oberbrunner as the inventor and Blockchain Life, LLC as the applicant.
Cedarville publicly covered the patent in this online article, noting that Dr. Kary Oberbrunner, Berry Chair of Entrepreneurship at Cedarville University, received a patent for his Easy IP invention after years of work on a method to protect intellectual property. The Cedarville article explains that the technology helps entrepreneurs, artists, and creatives protect ideas by leveraging blockchain technology.
Dr. Oberbrunner also participated in USPTO roundtables on intellectual property and non-fungible tokens. The USPTO patent roundtable was part of a joint USPTO and U.S. Copyright Office study responding to a request from the Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, and Kary Oberbrunner was listed among the industry representatives.
That work was later reflected in Non-Fungible Tokens and Intellectual Property: A Report to Congress, a joint USPTO and U.S. Copyright Office report published in March 2024. The report lists Kary Oberbrunner among the roundtable participants for both the trademarks and patents discussions.
This gives Cedarville the opportunity to pilot a solution developed by one of its own faculty members, backed by patented technology, and connected to national-level conversations around intellectual property, blockchain, emerging technology, and the future of creativity.

What Instant IP® Provides

Instant IP® creates a timestamped protection record for original work.
This does not replace patents, trademarks, copyrights, Cedarville policy, legal counsel, or formal commercialization processes. It simply provides a practical first step for documenting authorship, timing, originality, and stewardship.
Participants could use credits to protect:
Lesson plans
Original frameworks
Songs and lyrics
Student business ideas
Research concepts
Presentations
Creative works
Course content
Inventions or early-stage concepts
Speech or chapel content
Entrepreneurial projects

Student Portfolio Value

One of the most significant outcomes is that students could graduate with more than a diploma. They could graduate with a portfolio of unique intellectual property.
This could include protected projects, creative works, business ideas, designs, frameworks, research concepts, songs, presentations, or other original assets created during their Cedarville experience. 
In an increasingly competitive marketplace, this helps students demonstrate more than knowledge. It helps them demonstrate ownership, initiative, creativity, problem solving, and entrepreneurial thinking. 
A protected IP portfolio could make Cedarville graduates more attractive to employers because it shows they are not merely completing assignments. They are creating original value.

Education Component

The pilot should include a short training resource. The name could be:
AI, Attribution, and Intellectual Property Stewardship
This could be delivered as a 20-minute video, faculty lunch and learn, student workshop, simple PDF guide, or page inside Cedarville’s AI resources.
Core themes would include:
  • AI as a useful tool
  • Authorship and attribution
  • Intellectual property stewardship
  • Protecting original ideas
  • Using AI with integrity
  • Understanding what should and should not be submitted into AI tools
  • Knowing when to seek legal or university guidance
  • Building a personal portfolio of original intellectual property

Guardrails

The pilot would include clear boundaries:
Participation is opt-in.
Instant IP® does not replace Cedarville’s existing IP, employment, academic, or student policies.
Instant IP® does not replace patents, trademarks, copyrights, or legal advice. Users should only protect work they have the right to protect.
Sensitive, confidential, proprietary, or university-owned material should follow Cedarville’s existing policies before being submitted anywhere.
The pilot complements Cedarville’s AI vision and closed Chat system. It does not conflict with them.
The message is not anti-AI. It is pro-integrity, pro-creator, pro-stewardship, and pro-discernment.

Cost Options:

From a business standpoint, the primary goal of this pilot is not income. The greater goal is influence and impact. For Cedarville, this creates an opportunity to lead in the marketplace as a university that equips students, faculty, and staff to use AI with discernment and to steward intellectual property with integrity. For Instant IP®, this creates an opportunity to serve as the practical vehicle for IP protection in a campus environment where creativity, innovation, authorship, and stewardship already matter deeply. The shared values between Cedarville and Instant IP® make this a natural alignment: both are committed to truth, integrity, creativity, excellence, stewardship, and helping people protect and multiply what God has entrusted to them.
Option 1: Free Pilot
Instant IP® provides a limited number of free credits for a 90-day pilot at no cost to Cedarville.
Option 2: Cedarville Access Code
Students, faculty, and staff receive free or discounted Instant IP® credits through a Cedarville access code.
Option 3: Partnership Model
If users want additional credits beyond the pilot, Cedarville could receive a percentage back through a partner link, potentially supporting entrepreneurship, scholarships, or student innovation.
Recommended starting point:
Begin with a no-cost 90-day pilot, evaluate usage and feedback, then decide whether to expand.

Success Metrics

At the end of 90 days, Cedarville could review:
Number of participants
Number of protected assets
Types of IP protected
Faculty feedback
Student feedback
Academic programs represented
Student portfolio examples
Questions raised around AI, IP, attribution, and stewardship
Potential stories for Cedarville communications
Whether the pilot should expand campus-wide

Strategic Value for Cedarville

This pilot positions Cedarville as a leader in the responsible use of AI. 
It supports Cedarville’s commitment to truth, integrity, stewardship, creativity, academic excellence, and entrepreneurial thinking.
It helps reinforce that entrepreneurial thinking is not just for business majors. It is a mindset every student, faculty member, and staff member needs in an ever-changing world. 
It equips students not merely to use AI, but to understand authorship, attribution, originality, ownership, intellectual property, and value creation in the age of AI. 
It also provides a practical benefit to faculty, staff, and students who are creating valuable work and want a simple first layer of protection.


Recommended Next Step

After approval, we would finalize the pilot audience, the number of free Instant IP® credits, the educational resource, the internal communication language, the guardrails, the FAQ, the launch date, and the 90-day review process.
The pilot can begin simply, with minimal complexity, ZERO cost, and clear alignment with Cedarville’s mission. 
Bottom line: Cedarville can lead the way by helping students, faculty, and staff use AI with discernment while protecting the creativity, authorship, and intellectual property God has entrusted to them. In doing so, Cedarville can help graduates enter the marketplace with more than credentials. They can enter with confidence, character, entrepreneurial thinking, and a portfolio of original intellectual property.