Under UNMC policy all researchers have a duty to report inventions to UNeMed.
But aside from that, there is significant incentive to contact UNeMed about the invention. Consider that:
- UNeMed invests thousands of dollars on patentability searching and analysis to determine if an invention should be patented;
- When patentable and marketable, UNeMed pays for patenting and conducts marketing campaigns to seek licensing of the technology or sponsored research to further develop the technology;
- Inventors of successfully licensed technology receive one third of its net revenue;
- Many inventors receive quarterly royalty checks from UNeMed for their licensed technologies;
- Many others have dramatically developed their laboratories through sponsored research agreements brought in by UNeMed; and
- If you have an idea that needs some seed-money to research, UNeMed has innovation grants available for funding such research that has a likelihood of becoming a marketable invention.
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The drafting, filing and prosecution of a nonprovisional patent application to issuance costs an average of $15,000 to $30,000 depending on the technology. UNeMed covers these costs for UNMC inventors and then seeks reimbursement from licensees in the license terms. Patent application filing in multiple foreign countries may cost more than $100,000. UNeMed typically does not move forward with foreign patent protection without a licensee covering the costs.
What can cause one to lose patent rights?
Public disclosure or publication of the invention prior to filing a patent application undermines patent rights. All international patent rights are barred immediately upon such a disclosure and a one-year time period starts for filing a U.S. patent application on the invention before U.S. patent rights also are barred. Please contact UNeMed well in advance of a disclosing an invention so that it can be evaluated and a patent application can be filed to protect potential patent rights.
Signing certain agreements can assign or license away patent rights to future inventions. By entering into an agreement having a reach-through provision, an inventor may lose some or all patent rights to future inventions not only in the experiment described, but sometimes in the whole field. Therefore, any agreement with such implications should be forwarded to UNeMed.