This situation is unfair, and in this case, the one who originally came up with the project is right. The fact is that it was a speech in front of a professor, respectively, a public performance with the initials of the author. This, in turn, means that this object is subject to copyright, hence the protection of intellectual property. In a situation where ideas were stolen as plagiarism and then exhibited without the permission of the author, the one who owns this intellectual work will be right. By law, the author must receive compensation, unless otherwise provided in the contract, but the document was not drawn up (Pila & Dreyfuss. 2018).
Thus, in order to defend their rights, the author must take a number of actions. First of all, person needs to find evidence that intellectual work belongs to a particular individual. In the situation under consideration, this is easy to do, since there are witnesses and the work itself with initials, as well as the date of publication.
The next step should be to establish the fact of plagiarism, that is, that this particular project was implemented without the permission or notification of the author. Finally, with the collected evidence base and documents, it is necessary to go to court for further litigation. If the evidence and evidence are sufficiently complete, the author will receive compensation, and illegal plagiarism will be stopped (Halbert & Ingulli, 2014). Those who stole the ideas will be held accountable, as they will be charged with guilt, since, according to the law, their actions are guilty and malicious. However, it is important to emphasize that in order to prevent such situations from happening or to make it easier to win the court, it is necessary to apply for a patent of ideas (Pila & Dreyfuss. 2018). In this case, any intellectual work will be assigned to a specific individual and cannot be distributed without the knowledge of the owner.
References
Halbert, T, and Ingulli, E. (2014). Law and ethics in the business environment. Cengage Learning.
Pila, J. and Dreyfuss. R. C. (Eds). (2018). The Oxford handbook of intellectual property law. Oxford University Press.