A provisional patent application is a United States patent application that may be filed without some of the formalities required of a non-provisional patent application. A provisional patent application is not examined by the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office, and a patent cannot issue directly from a provisional application.
The demand for U.S. patent protections is growing exponentially; therefore a pendency period of two to four years is common.
A patent may be obtained on a novel, nonobvious and useful composition of matter, process, machine, article of manufacture, plant, microorganism, animal, computer software, or improvement of any of the above.
A United States patent is a grant from the government that gives the owner the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale, and importing the invention. Patents in other countries carry analogous rights.
The resulting patent will usually be jointly owned by UL Lafayette and the outside employee/outside employer. Again, each case depends on its own facts. Each of these inventors will have certain rights under the patent law.
In this situation, the inventor will usually own the invention. The key is that the invention has nothing to do with his or her UL Lafayette position.
IMPORTANT: Check with Office of Innovation Management to help avoid potential misunderstandings about IP ownership and rights.
It depends upon the circumstances under which the invention is made. The general rule is that anything an employee invents belongs to UL Lafayette, regardless of time of the day, day of the week, or month of the year; and regardless of whether UL Lafayette equipment and other resources were used when the invention was conceived or reduced to practice.
No.
Yes. The Office of Contractual Review has a "Collaborative Research and Intellectual Property Agreement” Template with an intent to streamline the negotiation process and decrease the time and effort required to reach an agreement among the parties involved. Contact the Office of Contractual Review first.
The fact of the matter is that the dollars funded for research do not purchase the intellect of a professor with many years of expertise or the accumulated wealth of infrastructure and support provided by UL Lafayette. The Office of Contractual Review handles delicate situations of this nature.
