﻿ OTT Faculty Inventions

Technology Transfer

Faculty Inventions

  Intellectual Property Guidelines
  • What is intellectual property?
    • Intellectual property is intangible personal property that can be characterized as invention, discovery, know-how, technological development, computer software, or even trade secret.  It is protected by copyrights, trademarks and patents and is an asset to its owner.  If protected adequately, intellectual property can be managed to benefit the owners and inventors as well as the public interest.
  • Patent Basics
    • A patent is a grant of the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention and includes a right to license that invention to others to make, use, or sell it.  Patent protection lasts for twenty years from the earliest filing.
  • Copyright Basics
  • Public Disclosure- Timing is Everything!
    • Public disclosure is a key event in the patentability of an invention.  Any presentation, publication, poster session, web posting, seminar, thesis defense or other dissemination of the enabling technology embodied in the invention is considered a public disclosure and starts the patent clock ticking.  Once a public disclosure has been made, the ability to file foreign patents is lost and a one year period begins for filing patents in the US
  • Inventorship vs. Authorship
    • The difference between authorship and inventorship is an important distinction. Authorship on a manuscript follows traditional academic practice in recognizing various contributions to the preparation of the paper.  However, an inventor is a person who contributes substantively to the conception or reduction to practice of an invention.  A final determination of inventorship typically is made by a patent counsel once the patent application is prepared.  Inventorship and authorship are not equivalent, and incorrect inventorship can lead to the invalidation of a patent. 
    Good Laboratory Notebooks
  Invention Agreements / Forms