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protect, publish, OR BOTH!
protect, publish, OR BOTH!
The pressure is on, as an academic you are constantly reminded that you need to get your name and research into papers, books, conferences, websites and media broadcasts. The funding bodies don't make it any easier by limiting the time you can embargo or pause sharing data under the Open Access terms. Pause for a moment and consider that this same pressure could also be the downfall of the very ideas and research you worked so hard to build.
Publicly sharing your inventive steps or intellectual property (IP) before you have formerly protected them counts as disclosure and will prevent you from claiming any future rights over your idea.
Funding bodies, investors, and industrial partners look at the route to market for your potential product. How will your idea, be turned into a tangible product then sold on the open market and hence benefit patients?
One way of ensuring this can happen is by reducing the risk of competition from others is through patenting (IP protection), this way no one else can use your idea. This has other benefits in that you, your institution and funders will have a return on their investment (ROI) should your idea be eventually sold on.
If protecting your IP can significantly increase the likelihood of achieving patient benefit, increasing the impact of your work, improving the odds of getting funding then exact opposite could be said by failing to protect your IP.
If there is no route to market and no return on any investment for anyone involved then this may prevent a potentially life saving treatment from having a patient benefit. This goes much further, if you can't find a way through then mostly likely neither will anyone else stumbling across the idea later.
So what to do?
If you are in a position were you have something really unique and innovative we would strongly recommend you speak to your business manager to find a way which you can both protect and still make a name for yourself in research.
Act soon so you can keep on track with your publishing and keeping to any Open Access data sharing agreements.
IF IN DOUBT SPEAK TO A BUSINESS MANAGER
IF IN DOUBT SPEAK TO A BUSINESS MANAGER
COMMON MISTAKES
COMMON MISTAKES
Accidental disclosure of key information
Accidental disclosure of key information
- Abstracts.
- Conference flyers and posters.
- Publishing papers.
- Websites, blogs and social media.
- Having a chat with your colleagues in a space where you can be overheard by members of the public.
- Failing to keep detailed lab notebook notes, which are dated and countersigned.
- Assuming your Supervisor will know enough to prevent you from disclosing key information.
- Undervaluing your ideas and failing to protect them.
Lack of agreements
Lack of agreements
- Failing to put non-disclosure agreements (NDAs, also referred to as confidential disclosure agreements - CDAs) or material transfer agreements (MTAs) in place with external parties (other Universities, NGOs and Businesses).
University processes & links
University processes & links
Agreements: NDAs and MTAs (In & Out)
Agreements: NDAs and MTAs (In & Out)
- These can be requested using the RS Agreements System, accessed via the myResearch portal.
IP Development Process
IP Development Process
- In first instance, discuss any potential protectable IP either with your Business Manager at the SHG or one of the Commercialisation Managers of the Impact and IP team.
- Complete an Initial Commercialisation Enquiry (ICE) form and if appropriate this will be converted to a Commercial Opportunity Disclosure (COD). For more details, refer to: ICE & COD
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