Intellectual Property Protection

Who Should Disclose Inventions

How do you know if you should disclose an invention to the Berkeley Office of Technology Licensing (OTL)? Submit an invention disclosure if any of the following is true. The innovation was created:

by a UC Berkeley employee as part of their scope of employment, or using UC Berkeley research facilities, or using funds administered through UC Berkeley

An invention that meets any of those criteria, and therefore could potentially be owned by the university, must be disclosed to OTL under the UC employee agreement. This ensures the University of...

What do I do when I have made a discovery?

Employees of the University have an obligation to disclose their inventions in writing to the Office of Technology Licensing. The IPIRA website provides links for disclosing your invention or copyrightable work as well as information about the process for disclosing an invention, tangible material, copyrightable software, multimedia (including software), or technical data.

Due to restrictions on patenting, if a disclosure is made to the OTL after it has been publicly disseminated in an enabling way...

Software Disclosures

UC Berkeley Office of Technology Licensing assists inventors and authors in licensing software under a variety of distribution strategies. In addition to licensing software code for commercial development and distribution, OTL licenses research code for non-commercial and/or academic purposes and assists authors in offering software via open source licenses.

What is Intellectual Property (IP)?

Intellectual property (IP) refers to a category of intangible property rights comprising primarily patents, copyright, trademarks, and trade secrets.

Review the UCOP IP Essentials for Academic Researchers for an interactive overview about each of the various types of IP and how they are protected, as well as the IP rights and responsibilities of researchers.

What is a patent and what is the consequence of patenting at the University?

A patent is a property right that protects an invention. A patent allows its owner to prevent others from commercially exploiting the patented invention. Patenting does not preclude publishing, on the contrary, it requires full disclosure of what it is that others may not do for the life of the patent, in the absence of a license to (or ownership of) the patent. Three types of patents may be obtained: utility, design, and plant.

Patents owned by the University are responsibly licensed in a way that protects the University's goals of basic research, education, and public service,...

How are Berkeley's inventions and other discoveries commercialized?

Inventions are commercialized through licenses. The Berkeley OTL licenses Berkeley's patent rights, personal property rights, and certain copyrights to companies for commercial development. Technology licenses grant companies the right to sell goods and services based on the University's inventions in exchange for fair compensation to the University. Licenses can be exclusive, nonexclusive, co-exclusive, and can also be limited in duration, specific geography, or particular purpose. Regardless of the type of license, the University retains the right to continue to practice the inventions,...

How can I assist the marketing efforts?

Your input into the process of finding the best match between the invention (or software/copyrights) and a private sector licensee is welcome, as your web of research relationships and even personal consulting relationships are often vital to reaching the right decision makers in industry. Conflict-of-interest in licensing policies don't allow you to make unilateral decisions, but by effectively partnering with you we can usually find a good match for the IP rights by finding licensees that fulfill the mission of translating great research into useful products and services that...

Who is an inventor?

An inventor is anyone who actually conceives an invention and/or has contributed to conception of an invention with another inventor. All inventors need not make equal contributions. Inventorship is a legal determination made by a patent attorney and is not the same as authorship on a scientific paper.

What are the various types of IP?

Patents

A patent for an invention grants “the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” the invention or importing the invention into the country where patent rights exist. Patentable subject matter includes new compounds, methods, plants, and software. Obtaining a patent can take many years and significant expense. Learn more at the UC Berkeley Patent Website.

Copyrights

Copyright protects the effort that goes into creating “original works of authorship” and art by providing exclusive rights to the...

Who is considered an inventor?

An inventor is anyone who actually conceives an invention and/or has contributed to conception of an invention with another inventor. All inventors need not make equal contributions. Inventorship is a legal determination made by a patent attorney and is not the same as authorship on a scientific paper.