Tips for submitting your innovation disclosure

We can’t wait to hear about your innovation, however, it is crucial that you provide our office with more than just a description of the innovation. As a result, here are a few key issues to keep in mind while filling completing the Innovation Disclosure. Please remember, this information will be crucial to assessing and commercializing your innovation moving forward.

 

If you are unsure about any element of the form, please don’t let that stop you from submitting your disclosure. Our office will be sure to work with you to get the proper information included in your submission.

1. What is an “Innovation”?

Patentable or un-patentable inventions, discoveries, processes, compositions, research tools, data, ideas, databases, know-how, copyrightable works that are not scholarly or artistic Creations and tangible property, including biological organisms, engineering prototypes, drawings, and software created, conceived or made by Applicable Personnel within their normal duties (including clinical duties), course of studies, field of research or scholarly expertise.

2. Who is an inventor?

  • An inventor is the individual who contributed to the intellectual inventive process;
  • An inventor must have contributed to the novelty of the invention.
  • An inventor must have been involved in the conception of the invention

3. Who is NOT an Inventor?

  • An individual who merely assists in reducing the invention to practice is not an inventor;
  • A co-author is not necessarily a co-inventor (a patent application is NOT a publication)

4. Is there prior art?

  • Have you disclosed your invention to the public (published paper, poster presentation, public presentation at a meeting, etc.)?
  • Is there any publicly available information in the field that may describe a similar concept or discovery?
  • You are obligated to disclose this information.

5. Stage of development:

  • Is there a prototype, is there research data, is this an idea, etc.?
  • What is the next step?

6. The Market:

  • What alternatives exist for your innovation in the marketplace today?
  • What is the gold standard in the industry? How does your discovery compare?

7. Funding Sources:

  • What funding was used in the discovery process? (e.g. NIH, American Cancer Society, Coulter Center, etc.)
  • This information is crucial to the commercialization process, in that, certain funding sources require reporting or updates regarding the use of the funding.