Intellectual Property (IP) is intangible property (e.g. an original idea or design) that is protected under the patent, trademark and/or copyright laws.
A patent is the right to exclude third parties from making, using, selling, offering to sell, or importing any patented invention. Patents are generally granted to protect a device, substance, method or process.
The following course on IP is a great resource for understanding aspects around patents for academics in Universities: Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs
Monash University owns 100% of the IP generated by its employees and researchers, but Creators are entitled to ⅓ of the Net Revenue generated from the IP.
Review File MU IP Policy and MU Council Regulation (Part 5) for more information.
All contributors to the ideas leading to a creation of IP must be mentioned in your disclosure, even if they are not employed by Monash University (such as an industry partner). To exclude any creators could invalidate the IP at any time in the future.
Students can contribute to an IP creation and will be named as creators under the IP policy. Under the policy, students own their own IP unless it builds on IP that was substantially University owned, or made significant use of University facilities in its creation.
Monash University offers many programs for Founders and entrepreneurs to help you develop skills towards building your own company, regardless of whether Monash owns the IP. Reach out to the Generator, our central startup hub to learn more about the support on offer.
Patents pursued by Monash will not usually require any financial input from Monash creators of IP; however your time will be needed to go through the disclosure and patenting process, as well as technical input in marketing the technology and finding potential licensors. Furthermore, patent costs incurred by Monash are typically reimbursed by commercial partners when the technology is licensed
Monash will typically file patents in Australia first (known as the priority filing) and pursue patents in other countries later (known as the National phase), in part to save costs but also to allow commercial partners to make the strategic decision on which countries matter to them. For more information, please see the Securing IP section.
A standard patent application is an application for the full and long-term protection (usually 20 years, but 25 years for pharmaceutical substances) of your invention. Standard patent applications usually take significant time and money to draft well.
If you are concerned someone else may file a patent before you do, Monash can file a provisional patent application.
A provisional patent application is an inexpensive way to signal your intention to file a full patent application later. This gives you 12 months to file a full patent application and claim the priority date of the provisional patent application.
No. You must file a patent in every country you wish to have an enforceable right in. A Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) application provides 18 months in which to decide the specific countries in which to do national filings - and Monash typically does this in conjunction with the commercial partner who also pays for this filing.
The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) covers a large number of countries and allows provisional patents to keep the option of being filed at National jurisdictions for another 18 months. This has numerous advantages, not least allowing 18 months more development before having to incur large fees at the National stage.
Copyright (such as written texts and software), data and other forms of IP can also be licensed without formal protection (these are known as "non-registrable IP"). The important thing is that the commercial route forward is valid based on the form of IP available.