Here you can find out how to
secure and exploit your scientific results that are eligible for protection,
receive support with intellectual property rights, market or literature searches,
find out about industrial property rights and
find information about the patenting and exploitation strategy at RPTU.
If you have made an invention as an employee at RPTU, you must report it to your employer in accordance with the German Employee Inventions Act (ArbnErfG). The only exception to this rule is if you wish to keep the invention secret. The responsible office at RPTU is the Rhineland-Palatinate Patent Information Center (PIZ), which receives your invention disclosure and checks its patentability and usability.
The corresponding invention disclosure form can be downloaded here in German and English language.
Please note that the invention disclosure must always be made before any other publication! It is irrelevant whether the publication is made in writing (paper, poster) or orally, for example as a conference presentation. If an invention has already been published, it can no longer be patented in Europe and many other market regions. You are therefore legally obliged to report such research results to the university at least two months before publication elsewhere! However, as various parties (inventors, patent attorneys, RPTU staff) are involved in the preparation of a patent application, early notification is highly desirable.
If you have general questions or are unsure whether your research result could be an invention, please contact Jürgen Müller.
Upon receipt of the invention disclosure, the RPTU will examine the patentability and economic potential of the invention.
After four months at the latest, but usually much earlier, the RPTU will decide whether to claim or release the invention.
In the event of a claim, RPTU will commission a patent attorney at its own expense to file a corresponding patent application and carry out exploitation efforts to put the invention into practice. Any income generated will be paid out to the inventor (community) on a pro rata basis.
As soon as the patent application (not to be confused with the invention disclosure) has been filed, nothing stands in the way of scientific publication.
The handling of inventions at RPTU and assistance with basic procedures throughout the entire innovation process - from the idea to exploitation - are documented in a handout entitled "Property rights and exploitation at RPTU".
The half-hour initial consultation by a patent attorney offered by the PIZ is primarily aimed at inventors who are not employees at RPTU. This includes external parties as well as students at RPTU. Inventors who are employed at RPTU, on the other hand, must report their invention to RPTU (see "Invention report"), whereupon this invention is evaluated by experts to a much greater extent.
However, RPTU employees can also discuss specific issues relating to other industrial property rights with the patent attorney as part of the initial inventor consultation.
If RPTU members have developed usable software in the course of their work, they are obliged to report this to their employer. The completed software registration form (download here) is accepted by the Patent Information Center. If you have any questions, please contact Jürgen Müller.
The services of the Patent Information Center are available to both external and internal persons at RPTU for various search services. These include, for example, overview searches on the status of intellectual property rights in a specific scientific subject area, which can be useful for R&D activities. Trademark searches are also necessary for legal protection when using logos or titles for events, products, etc.
You can obtain support from the PIZ for your own research or commission the research from the PIZ experts for a fee. You can find more information here.
Download search request forms:
Here you will find links to freely accessible and free research tools for your own research:
You can find the property rights and exploitation strategy at RPTU here.
Members of scientific institutions can find extensive information on the protection of their intellectual property here.
Members of scientific institutions can find extensive information on the protection of their intellectual property here.
Les membres d'institutions scientifiques trouveront ici de nombreuses informations sur la protection de leur propriété intellectuelle.
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research offers a detailed handout on the question of what is permitted in university teaching and research. "Copyright in science"
The German Patent and Trade Mark Office also provides useful information on copyright:
"Copyright: Your text, your image, your music - What rights you have when you create a work"
