Unlocking innovation: The strategic power of patents
“In the biotechnology sector, the time to first venture capital financing is shortened by 76% if the company has at least one patent application.” (Study „To Be Financed or Not – The Role of Patents for Venture Capital Financing“)
This is just one of many reasons why patents are crucial for the thriving development of a life science company. In the EKFZ Academy workshop, participants learned how to successfully utilize and protect their innovations and why patents are an economic asset for academia and industry. Intellectual property experts Dr. Stefan Uhle (MBM ScienceBridge), Markus Rieck and Dr. Nico Riffel (both Fuchs Patentanwälte) provided strategies for the efficient exploitation of scientific inventions and explained the basics of patent application and law. Furthermore, Dr. Lennart Weiß (KWINTELY Intelligence) revealed how patent search can be simplified and accelerated by using the software KWINTELY.
To successfully file a patent, the following aspects should be considered:
• your innovation has to be novel, inventive and industrial applicable
• do not publish your invention before filing a patent
• use non-disclosure agreements (NDA) with potential partners
• document experiments, including fails
• speed of operation is your key benefit
We would like to thank the speakers for their excellent and informative presentations and the valuable discussions!
