Before any disclosure of your invention, it is important to think about protecting it. Any premature disclosure may render it impossible to protect it correctly.

So, we recommend you complete the invention disclosure form before any public disclosure (verbal and/or written). This document contains the information necessary to begin the process of exploiting the results of your research.

It is important to complete this document with as many details as possible and to attach any supporting documentation that may help our teams to define the best means of protection and of promotion to pursue. The promotion experts of ADRE and Sopartec are available to help you complete the form.

N.B. : It must be pointed out that every invention will not necessarily lead to a patent application. Other means of protection may be used depending on the context: trademark, designs and models, copyright, etc. Other ways of promotion may be indentified: transfer and commercialisation of reactive agents (biological, chemical etc.), software, data bases, spin-off companies, etc.

Based on the information provided in the invention disclosure form, our team will assess the best promotion and protection strategies for your invention.

The main issues at this stage are intellectual property, the development stage of the technology and the market.

Intellectual Property:

• Can the technology be patented?
• Has there been any public disclosure of the invention?
• Should the technology be patented? Or are other forms of protection such as secrecy preferable?

The technology :

• What stage of development has the technology reached?
• Is the technology innovative?
• Is the technology competitive in relation to existing solutions and time and investment constraints?

Market :

• What is/are the field(s) of application of the technology?
• Are there clients interested in purchasing a product based on the technology?
• Are there potential clients willing to pay for this technology, which could lead to a company making profit from it?

The decision on the promotion route to follow is made jointly with the researcher(s)/inventor(s). When an invention may be protected by filing a patent application, our team will submit your file for approval to the Patent Management Committee (CGB for Comité de Gestion des Brevets) before engaging the services of an external patent attorney. 

If the creation of a spin-off enterprise is favoured the project will then move straight to the incubation phase.

When a patent application has been filed, our team will contact you to draft a promotion sheet. This sheet will be used to contact companies with a potential interest in the technology in question. The person in charge of your file will also ask you to provide a list of companies or individuals from your own network so that the technology may be offered to them in priority. This will allow us to gauge market interest in the technology and to identify and define the promotion strategy to adopt.

When the strategy for the protection and promotion routes have been approved, our team will carry out a market survey (segmentation, size, competition, etc.) in order to position your invention in relation to existing solutions. This survey will enable us :

• to consider the developments needed to obtain a proof of concept (prototype) that corresponds to market needs,
• to determine in which countries patent protection would be advisable if entering the national phase (30 months after having filed the patent application).

On the basis of the market survey, feedback from industrialists and the resources available to develop proof of concept, we will work in cooperation with you to fine-tune the promotion strategy best adapted to your technology:

• a patent may be licensed to a company who will take over the development and the commercialisation of your invention;
• a spin-off company may be formed to exploit the results from your laboratory by means of a license on the know-how and/or a license on the patent;
• a non-patentable product that is nevertheless of interest may be sold under a material transfer agreement;
• and there are many other possibilities, not necessarily mutually exclusive.

It must be stressed that all these approaches, apart from their importance in setting a strategy for promotion, also allow for better exposure of the research projects of your group. This will enable the creation of new contacts which may help your research to evolve and open new avenues of collaborative opportunities that could lead to new research contracts for the benefit of your laboratory.

Having confidence in our expertise and our dealings with the industrial sector, we will take responsibility for negotiating and drafting the promotion contract(s): licence agreement, material transfer agreement, confidentiality agreement etc. with the industrial partner(s) who has(have) expressed an interest in your technology. This contract will define the legal framework related to the development, utilisation and commercial exploitation of your invention.

Setting up a spin-off company

Our administrative team will follow up and make sure that the terms of the promotion contract are respected by keeping in regular contact with the company / companies involved with your technology.

Assuming that revenue is generated from the promotion of your invention, we will be responsible for its distribution in line with the regulations in force at UCL. Share of revenue is made after deduction of patent expenses incurred by Sopartec and UCL. You will be personally notified if exploitation revenue is owed to you.