Inventions
Did your investigations produce interesting new results? Are you currently planning the associated publication? If so, now is the right time to consider whether an invention you have just discovered is also of commercial importance because it can, for example, be used in industrial or commercial applications. Pursuant to the German Employees’ Inventions Act, you are obliged to report such inventions to your employer. If it is an employee invention, the employer will check if he wants to file a patent application. As such a check takes time, you should timely report inventions, for example, when you start to write a publication and not shortly before the actual publication. A precondition for the granting of a patent is that an innovation must be new and sufficiently stand out from the state of the art. This means that it must be based on an inventive step and not be obvious. These criteria ensure that not every minor invention results in an intellectual property right that could also block the progress in the relevant area. Before your employer decides whether he wants to make use of your invention and file a patent application, he must therefore check if the chances and costs of the grant of a patent are in reasonable proportion to the economic potential of your invention. If he makes use of your invention, he must pass on 30% of all income earned with the patent to you, the inventor employed by the higher education institution (or the inventor team). Further income will often flow into the research budget of the involved departments.
The following institutions have instructed MBM ScienceBridge GmbH to evaluate their invention declarations:
- Georg-August-University Göttingen
- University of Hildesheim Foundation
- Leuphana University of Lüneburg
- Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences
- Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften und Kunst Hildesheim / Holzminden / Göttingen University of Applied Sciences and Arts
- Hanover University of Applied Sciences
- Hanover University of Veterinary Medicine
- Institute for Nanophotonics Göttingen
If you are an employee of one of the above institutions, you are welcome to timely contact us in order to clarify if you made an invention and how to proceed. Our Patent Managers will be happy to discuss your questions.
Invention declarations are to be submitted by you to your higher education institution or research facility, preferably after prior consultation of MBM ScienceBridge GmbH. The current forms for an invention report are available to you in our Download Section.
You will find further information in our FAQ Section.
You are also welcome to contact us by telephone if you have any questions or to make an appointment with us for an on-site information meeting.
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Information and Training with regard to Inventions and Patents
MBM ScienceBridge GmbH offers higher education institutions and research facilities in Lower Saxony an information service covering the use of inventions and patents.
This service is promoted by the German state of Lower Saxony and is free of charge for you.
The objective of the information service is to raise the scientists’ awareness of inventions and their economic use.
Our offer covers:
- Individual talks with scientists after having made an appointment,
- Presentations at institutional colloquiums,
- Speech events during PhD seminars.
- Our events provide information on, for example, the following subjects:
- How can I plan my research with due consideration given to patent law aspects?
- How do I correctly handle inventions?
- What are employee inventions and what use are they to me?
- How can I use research results from an economic point of view?
- Should my research results be patented?
Examples of past events:
- Information event titled “From idea to patent - commercializing inventions successfully” in the MSc and PhD ‘Neuroscience Programme’ Course of the Graduate School for Neurosciences and Molecular Biosciences (GGNB)
- Information event at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg on the subject: “Trade Mark Law and Trade Mark Application in Connection with Higher Education Institution Results / Inventions”
- Information event at the Göttingen Laser Laboratory on the subject “State of the Art – Research prior to Project Applications / Important Backgrounds and Specific Research Possibilities”
- Presentation within the Scope of the Agronomy Professors’ Conference of the Göttingen University on the subject: “Innovations, Patent Laws and their Use – From Your Invention to a Patent and Its Use“
- Design Faculty of the Hildesheim/ Holzminden/ Göttingen University of Applied Sciences and Arts, subject: “Non-Technical Intellectual Property Rights: Trade Marks and Designs“
Are you interested in an information event, for example within the scope of PhD seminars or postgraduate programs?
Contact us! We will be pleased to visit you.
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Patent application
If your employer has made use of your invention, he must file a patent application based on your invention declaration.
MBM ScienceBridge GmbH will coordinate this process on behalf of the higher education institutions and research facilities to which it attends.
First of all, a patent lawyer specialised in the respective field will be contracted to prepare the printed patent specification. Your assistance in the preparation of the printed patent specification will be required because you contribute the scientific know-how. The patent lawyer will usually draw up a draft patent on the basis of the information provided by you in your invention report and then discuss the draft patent with you and the responsible Patent Manager of MBM ScienceBridge GmbH. In this way, the description of the invention and its applications, the considerations concerning its commercialisation and patent law aspects will be included in the final printed patent specification.
The patent lawyer will then file it as a patent application. He will also monitor any time limits for an extension of the patent to cover various countries.
MBM ScienceBridge GmbH will remain the primary contact partner for you - the inventor – in this process. Our aim is to take the majority of the bureaucratic burden of such a process off your shoulders.
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