Understanding patenting

By patenting any suitable intellectual property generated here, the University (and EI) has the protection of law to justify the investment in commercialising any ideas, discoveries or inventions.

A commercial decision

A decision to file a patent to protect a new idea, discovery or invention is made after the BDE has made an application to EI’s Intellectual Property Approval Meeting (IPAM) to fund patent protection.

The decision to file a patent is a commercial one - will the University recover the costs that it invests?

Costs covered during commercialisation

EI will fund all associated patenting costs as part of the commercialisation of your idea, discovery or invention. This can be expensive (at least several thousand pounds; sometimes more).

Therefore, the inventor(s) can be assured that if a decision is made to file a patent, then EI believes that there are high chances of the inventor(s) and the University receiving royalty income in the long-term.

Patent continually assessed

EI will regularly assess the commercial progress of your technology to decide whether to continue patenting or not. We will abandon a filing if we determine that the idea, discovery or invention cannot be commercialised.

Legal protection

With a patent application in place, the protection of patent law enables EI to negotiate a valuable equity stake or royalty flow in discussions with potential licensees regarding licence agreements.