Applied Linguistics at KMUTT

I humbly come to this forum for guidance...

Nearly three years ago I serendipitously came across a unique COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH TO TEACHING GRAMMAR system. This system, created and refined for over fifteen years, is heavily theory based but lacks quantifiable empirical evidence to support the curriculum.

The creator is interested in me researching the validity of this grammar teaching system either for an article or if permitted, for my dissertation. Herein lies the issue... The creator is requesting some measures be put in place for the protection of his Intellectual Property.

What are viable options for the protection of his IP in an article or a dissertation?

Would be interesting to know how such a unique system was developed and verified.

I'm not totally sure what the issue is here. Giving credit to the originator of an idea using citations is the standard practice. If the originator of the system has never published, then citing as "Personal communication" or as "Unpublished document" still gives credit. If the originator wants to keep the system secret (like Coca-Cola with its formula), then you can't disseminate any research. In this last case, I would seriously wonder about the sanity of the originator.