If there are several patents filed for a single invention (in several countries) claiming the same priority(ies), we then refer to these as “patent families”. All the members of this patent family are linked together by common priority numbers with associated priority dates. A patent family consists of all the documents linked directly or indirectly, to a priority document (the first established).

In order to meet the criteria of being patentable, the invention must predominantly meet the following three criteria :

• Novelty, that is to say that nothing identical has ever been made public knowledge by any means whatsoever.
• Inventiveness, that is to say that the invention cannot be obviously derived from the state of the art as known to a person involved in the technical area in question.
• Industrial application, that is to say that the invention may be manufactured or used in industry.

Our team is available to help you check if your invention meets patenting criteria. Please do not hesitate to contact us about this.

Filing a patent is a long and costly procedure. Depending on the lack of unity of the invention, the cost is between €6,000 and

€10,000 for the drafting of the application and for its filing with the European Patent Office. From the first year onwards, the costs associated with the maintenance and examination of the application increase and can quickly reach € 50,000.

It is therefore important to regularly assess the potential of the technology and its level of development in order to decide whether or not to maintain the patent in question. This decision is made by the Patent Management Committee. 

Disclosure is the act of making information available to the public.

Please find below a non-exhaustive list of the kinds of disclosure (more or less voluntary) that you may encounter:

• Submitting an article to a journal / an abstract for a conference
• Presentation at a conference
• Poster
• Application for financing
• Thesis/ dissertation defence
• Meeting with an industrial partner
• Material transfer
• Introducing sequences in data bases
• Information circulated on the Internet

Any disclosure of an invention, verbal and/or written, may render it impossible to file a patent application. Our first advice is not to disclose information regarding the technology when you think that it might be marketable.

However, we are well aware that in the context of university research, this ideal is difficult to maintain, given the publication demands in the university environment. Please do not hesitate to contact us in this case. We will make every effort to find solutions to enable you to promote your technology while at the same meeting the publication demands made on you.

The main stages of the patenting procedure that are generally followed are outlined below :

Some patent data bases are accessible free of charge on the Internet.

These data bases are useful for :

• Doing preliminary priority research before filing a patent application ;
• Keeping up to date with technological developments in your field of activity.

It is important to bear in mind that only published patents (18 months after the priority filing) are accessible and that research will not allow you to identify patents filed in the previous 18 months.

• http://be.espacenet.com
• http://www.epoline.org
• http://www.wipo.int
• http://www.uspto.gov
• http://www.opic.ic.gc.ca

When you have decided to file your patent application, you should complete the research by consulting the commercial patent data bases. This research will be carried out with the help of PI² Wallonie. 

The Patent Management Committee was set up in 2005 and consists of :

• The Prorector Company Department;
• The Vice-rector of the Health Sciences Department;
• Representatives of ADRE;
• Representatives of Sopartec.

This Committee meets 4 to 6 times a year. An emergency procedure was also put in place in the event of a decision having to be made quickly, for instance to prepare for an imminent disclosure. In addition, inventors may also be heard by the Patent Management Committee and thus have the opportunity to defend their invention.

The responsibilities of the Patent Management Committee are as follows :

• To study the advisability of filing a patent application ;
• To study the advisability of maintaining a patent application/a patent and subsequently deciding whether or not to withdraw it in specific cases ;
• Validation of decisions relating to the management of the portfolio of patents ;
• Monitoring the promotion of patents.

In order to fulfil these responsibilities the Patent Management Committee will consider the following criteria in its decision-making :

• Patentability,
• Economic promotion,
• Strategic interest,
• Ethical issues.