IIP focuses primarily on innovations that look like they could make a big impact, but the destiny of the innovation is uncertain. In those cases, there are often unanswered questions to pursue, prototypes to make, and business models to figure out. The work needed to take an innovation from lab to commercial product or service is significant, and therefore those who invest their time, money, or expertise into commercializing a patent owned by PSU will want to be confident that eventually, they will be able to recover their investment through licensing.
In cases of federally funded research, the entire federal government will have free right to use any patents which result from that research. This is normally the case with State and other funding agencies as well.
Reasons to license a patent: in most cases, creating impact with an innovation requires much more work than simply filing a patent. Patent law grants the owner of a patent several exclusive rights to control the use of the idea in the patent, essentially creating a limited-time monopoly on an innovation that incentivizes investment in the innovation. The rights include the exclusive power to, make, use, sell, or otherwise utilize the idea described in the patent. While a published idea without a patent is free to anyone to use, a patent gives PSU and the inventors the right to proactively determine the next steps in taking an innovation to market, which could be a license to an existing company, forming a startup, or seeking an applied development partnership with public or private funding. In most cases, a license to the patent will be given in exchange for a fee, and depending on the technology, a patent could be licensed many times to many different licensees.
Why should there be a licensing fee: PSU invests in several patents each year with the goal of protecting innovations that, with further future value-added by licensees, may create a much bigger impact on society than if the discovery was published without patenting. Licensing fees first recoup the patent costs, which are then used to invest in future patents; fees in excess of patent costs are disbursed among the college/department/center of the inventors, IIP, and the inventors personally, according to the IP revenue policy.
If I Have an Innovation to Discuss, What Should I do Next?:
- Get in touch with IIP.
- Disclose your work.
- IIP will read the disclosure and get in touch about potential next steps.
- Find partners or licensees for technologies that are patented.
Ready to disclose: access the Inventor Portal here.
Once your request has been approved, you may disclose your work by visiting the same url.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me should you have any questions or concerns. I’m here to help! My contact information can be found below.
Travis Woodland
Director, Innovation & Intellectual Property
503-725-8336