Intellectual Property and Patent Rights: How to Protect Your Idea

Aims

Intellectual property protection is key for a successful commercialization of scientific research results. This seminar will introduce you to the various types of intellectual property, with a special focus on patent rights.

Content

In the first part, an introduction to the concept of intellectual property protection will be provided. The essential requirements for patenting will be explained and examples will be shown.
In the second part, a hands-on example of an invention disclosure will be provided. The students will assess patentability of the invention in small groups and discuss their findings in class. The students will learn how to evaluate an invention and what drives the decision whether to file a patent or not.
In the third part, the different paths to exploit inventions resulting from academic research are presented. Commercialization usually occurs by licensing the invention to a third party, which may either be an existing company, or a spin-off company.

Methods

• Presentations

• Group discussion

• Structured group work

• Exercises

• Feedback

Target Group

All Doctoral Candidates & Postdocs

About the Trainer

Dr. Wolfgang Henggeler Technology Transfer Manager, ICT, Physics, Chemistry, Medical Technology, and Dr. Patrick Sticher, Technology Transfer Manager, Life Sciences and Medical Technology; both from Unitectra AG, the Technology Transfer Organization of the Universities of Basel, Bern and Zurich: unitectra

Workload

Preliminary Work (preparation): 2h
Seminar: 1 x 4h

Feature

Once registration is open, applications will be collected for 24 hours and course places allocated by lot. All registrations received after the initial 24h period will be put on a waiting list and assigned on a first come, first served basis.

Course places/places on the waiting list will be confirmed by e-mail. Course registrations can only be canceled before the registration period ends (send an e-mail to grace@unibas.ch). Full course attendance is mandatory. Participants who fail to attend a course without prior notification or withdraw after the registration deadline are subject to a fee of CHF 30. In addition, participants who cancel their course registration at a later point in time, are absent without an excuse or do not attend the entire course will, for reasons of fairness, not be considered for course registration in the following semester and will be removed from other courses offered in the same semester. Please find the detailed regulations on the Transferable Skills Homepage.