Service Inventions and Invention Consultations

At the beginning of February 2002, the Employee Invention Act was amended. Due to the changes in paragraph 42, university professors, lecturers, and assistants are now considered to be service inventors. This means that the right to application and use of inventions is now held by the university. Of course, as a result, the attendant obligations, such as patent application and financing of the application, have also been passed on to the universities.

Since this time, inventors at universities have had to notify their superiors, i.e., the universities, of their inventions. To do this, you may download the form for invention disclosure via the link under "Downloads" in the right-hand side column and forward it via internal mail to Technology Transfer. Within four months at the latest you will receive a written notification of whether the university will claim the invention or release it.

Law has it that if the university claims the invention, it must be registered as soon as possible. It also lays down that that 30 percent of any revenues arising from the patent or its use must be paid to the inventor. If the invention is released, the inventor may proceed as he would have before the legal amendment and as he chooses.

Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) works closely with the Patentverbund Forschung Rheinland-Pfalz and the state-owned Innovations-Management GmbH (IMG) regarding the patent sector. Additional information on the subject of technology transfer can be found on the web pages of JGU or the Patentverbund.

The Patentverbund Forschung Rheinland-Pfalz is sponsored by the "SIGNO Universities". SIGNO stands for the protection of ideas for commercial use and comprises a new program by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) to provide support to universities, businesses, and inventors during legal safeguarding and commercial exploitation of innovative ideas.