IP protection
The first and basic remark – the sooner the better.
What does it mean? The sooner you contact the IOCB TTO with any idea, result, invention, contact with a company, interest of a company - the better we can handle it and the better might be the result.
The IOCB TTO is here to help you to develop the idea into a commercially successful project.
Do not hesitate to come or call or send an email any time you have a feeling you would like to. Everybody is welcomed!
Formal procedures
There are formal procedures we have to stick to and these are given by the directive of the director and can be found in links “directive 2/2010” and supplement.
Few comments on the procedures
- Submitting the Invention (to the Institute as your employer)
The best protection of any invention is to keep it secret. Old professionals will always tell you: “If you want to protect it, keep your mouth shut!” Unfortunately at the basic research institution like IOCB we can´t stick to this principle as much as it can be done in the industry. A second rule applies here – “Publish or perish”. There is considerable pressure on production of publications and on presentations at the conferences.
Nevertheless – if there is an invention then we have (both in our own interest and from the point of view of law) to take the best care of a proper protection of intellectual property. This is usually done by filing a patent. The creation of a patent takes some time, usually it takes several interations between scientists and a patent expert. Surely, you should realize that this process usually takes several weeks or even couple of months if we want to have the patent to be really a good one, such that will protect the invention and will stand in the court if someone challenges it in future.
A good patent is also a strong argument for the industrial partner to license it in.
It is clear from this introduction that the sooner you will come to IOCB TTO with your invention the better result can be expected at the end. The formal procedure requires to disclose the invention to the director´s office. But it may be a good idea to come to IOCB TTO in advance, at the moment when you consider to make the official disclosure (announcement). This will allow us to prepare everything needed and to help you to do the disclosure.
Once you submit your invention to the director´s office, the management of the institute has 90 days to respond. During that time it is necessary to collaborate with the IOCB TTO and to supply a basic description of the invention to the IOCB TTO. This will enable the IOCB TTO to analyze your invention and to make a recommendation to the institute management of what the decision should be – to accept or to decline. In clear cases the IOCB TTO will give its recommendation very quickly. But there will be also cases when the IOCB TTO will ask some other both internal and occasionally also external people for advice. You do not worry about this procedure, all will be done under confidentiality agreements.
2. Procedures after Submitting
As soon as the disclosure is done, the IOCB TTO will cooperate with you one the creation of the patent text. A basic policy is to do the patent in house, meaning IOCB TTO, but we might decide to use some specialized offices. Such decision will depend on the patent subject and on an agreement between authors, the institute and IOCB TTO. Also – time will show the best procedures to use. You will be asked to collaborate on the patent text – especially the scientific parts cannot be written (in the basic form) by no one else then by the author. The parts which are more formal will be formulated by the patent attorney. IOCB TTO then will take care of all future formal steps. A filing of a national patent application will be financed by the Institute.
Crucial for success is to define what sort of experiments and supporting data can be done during the first 12 months after filing of an national patent application (which is a period for a filing of an international patent application, PCT, with the same date of priority) and also what can be done during the next 18 months period (before an entry into a national phase in particular countries. This will be again a task for both – autor/s and IOCB TTO to define and to execute.
to be continued …………….
quick contact
Flemingovo n. 2, 16610
Prague, Czech Republic
tel.: +420 220 612 258
email: info@iocb-tto.cz