Until recently, it was unclear under US case law whether university patent policies were sufficient to obligate university personnel to assign their inventions to the university without a signed invention-assignment agreement. This paper examines the question through recent case law. These cases indicate a trend in support of university claims that patent policies alone may be sufficient to require assignment under certain circumstances. In addition to discussing the sufficiency of patent policies to obligate academics to assign, this paper also considers the applicability of patent policies to students.