Getting commercialisation assistance from colleges

Le Graduate

Hi everyone,

Currently I'm partaking in a masters in a Dublin university and one of the assignments for us to is to develop a new product idea. I've done that and a number of lecturers have recommended me patenting the idea immediately.

Now, I presented my idea to the university 'incubator' you know the body who help students to commercialise their intellectual property. They offered to put me in contact with someone who I assume is patent agent and they will offer to come along.

I've heard stories of colleges screwing over students and naturally I'm extremely sceptical.

Has anyone had this situation before?

Or would you suggest for the time being I approach a patenting agent by myself and wait until I have secured that before accepting any further assistance?

Seriously would appreciate any advice.

moonlighting

never give your ideas or designs as a college project. its a gray area but there have been stories of successful inventors being sued by colleges because the idea/design/product was developed as a college project.
and besides getting patients costs a fortune. only a small percent of patents ever make the owner money, so unless you got a game changer forget about it.

antoinolachtnai

Your university may have a claim on the intellectual property, whatever way you go about this.

Do not assume that anybody is a patent agent.

To move a patent forward, you are looking at coming up with thousands of euros within 15 months or so. Are you really in a position to do that?

Unless you have the wherewithal and capital to do this yourself, I would suggest moving this forward in conjunction with the university in some way. You can negotiate the exact terms.

AndyJB

Le Graduate wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Currently I'm partaking in a masters in a Dublin university and one of the assignments for us to is to develop a new product idea. I've done that and a number of lecturers have recommended me patenting the idea immediately.

Now, I presented my idea to the university 'incubator' you know the body who help students to commercialise their intellectual property. They offered to put me in contact with someone who I assume is patent agent and they will offer to come along.

I've heard stories of colleges screwing over students and naturally I'm extremely sceptical.

Has anyone had this situation before?

Or would you suggest for the time being I approach a patenting agent by myself and wait until I have secured that before accepting any further assistance?

Seriously would appreciate any advice.

Hi,
Have a look at the Irish Patents Office site. They offer Patent Clinics to people, not sure of costs. Call them for details.

Have anyone you speak with sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Some will say they're not worth paper written on but will lay down a marker. PM me if you want one to base yours on.

Do have a chat with the P.O before meeting your college contacts and if you're still not sure where to turn contact a solicitor and get them to recommend a patents agent.

You could do various patent searches yourself using this site. Basically its a classification search, which is the way a guy giving a course I attended suggested to go about it rather than using search terms.

Drill down through the categories, add anything that looks relevant to "My Patents" and come back to look at them later. If they're still relevant, then follow patents that they reference. Be sure to have plenty of strong coffee to hand, you'll need it.

If your college is that interested, the idea must have some potential so just go down the solicitor route immediately.

Just remember income derived from the use of a patent is tax free, at the moment.

Best of luck.

Le Graduate

Thanks for all the replies. It has been a hectic week so I'm only logging back in now. After your advice I will firstly pursue the path of securing a patent myself and with that in mind give me some control over matters.

Have a good Christmas.