FAQs

What needs to be considered when students, scholarship holders or visiting scientists are co-inventors?"

Students who are not employed as student or research assistants at the university are not covered by the Employee Invention Act, but are free inventors. Likewise, scholarship holders or visiting scientists who are not contractually bound to the university are free inventors.

In order to have a clear situation of the property rights of the industrial property right for later exploitation, arrangements should be made in advance in these cases. In these cases, please contact us.

If the contents of the planned publication are to be protected by a patent, they must be protected beforehand. Patent protection does not exist until the application is received by the patent office. This is the case at the earliest 2 months (please indicate planned publication in the invention disclosure in case of urgency), usually 3-6 months, after receipt of the invention disclosure by the university.

A patent is an exclusion right, competitors are not allowed to produce or imitate the "subject matter", not allowed to import or put it into circulation and not allowed to use it. The protection exists only in the countries where the property right is granted. Permitted are uses in the private sphere (not commercial) and research on (not with! - license obligation) the protected invention.

Example: Research on the further development of PCR methods is permitted. Research using the PCR method, which does not serve the further development of the method, requires a license.

In the event of successful exploitation of a service invention, the university is legally obligated to pay an inventor's compensation. Pursuant to Section 42 (4) ArbErfG, the inventor or the inventor community is entitled to 30% of the gross exploitation income generated (from licensing or sale).