A team member from Monash Innovation will be assigned as the Case Manager and will be in touch to discuss the points on your form, and advise on potential commercial and patent strategies. It is important to give them all the information you can about the invention and its background so that they can make an informed and quick decision. The first step is to review the terms of the funding that led to the invention to confirm if funders have rights to IP, or if ownership is spread across multiple organisations.
Invention disclosures are assessed for novelty, inventiveness and commercial potential - that is, the market opportunity combined with the potential for the technology to have an impact. This is done using internal knowledge and expertise in commercialisation, as well as third party data (market reports) and external validation from industry experts.
The Case Manager will also work closely with the inventors to help in the commercial assessment process.
The Case Manager will review the 'prior art' of the invention and if relevant conduct a patent search. Prior art is any information in the public domain that relates to or may cover aspects of your invention. This may be in patent or academic literature, or even presentations, news articles or blog posts. Understanding what is in the public domain already will allow the Case Manager to understand the scope of protection available, and therefore assess the commercial potential of the invention. Once an assessment has been discussed with the creators, it is reviewed by our in-house Patent Attorneys before engaging an external Patent Attorney to draft the patent.