What Happens When Professors Have Valuable Inventions?
You are a faculty member at a research university and you have made a significant breakthrough. More specifically, you are on the verge of what might be loosely called an “invention.” It could be anything—a chemical formula, a gene, a medical test or therapy, an engineering advance, or even a method of financial analysis. But its defining elements are that it is new and that it has a potentially useful, real-world application.
So what do you do next? The answer is simple, unequivocal, and unavoidable: Read your university’s patent and invention policy. (It might also be called an intellectual property policy or a technology transfer policy.) In all probability, it became part of your terms and conditions of employment when you were hired.
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