The inventor, patent attorney and Office of Innovation Management cooperate to secure broad, protectable coverage of the intellectual asset. Typically, this process requires a commitment of 6-12 hours, by the inventor team, during the period of prosecution.
As with every American academic, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette owns patents on most inventions made by UL Lafayette employees.
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.
Written laboratory records provide evidence of the date of conception of the invention, provide proof of inventorship, and show that the inventors used diligence in developing an idea. Such documentation is often needed if a third party contest the validity of the patent.
Many research projects involve collaborators from another university, company, or research laboratory, so it is not uncommon to have outside co-inventors. In such cases, each institution will have an unrestricted right to commercialize the technology without any accounting to the other–unless there is a written agreement specifying how the IP rights are to be handled.
The person(s) who actually conceives the invention is the inventor-not all the inventors need to make the same level of contribution. Inventorship is determined based on the individual’s contribution to the inventive steps as defined in the patent claims. Note: Individuals that only carry out work at the direction of the inventor are not considered to be inventors under patent law.
