At present the regulation in force is legislative Decree no. 30 of 10 February 2005 which in art. 65 gives the researcher the choice of whether or not to register a patent in his/her name in the case of an invention conceived or developed in a university environment.
In any case the responsibilities are as follows:
- the University is NOT responsible for any cost incurred;
- the researcher is obliged to inform the university administration of the registration;
- in any case the University is legally entitled to share in any income deriving from the commercial exploitation of the patent (the percentage share for the University of Bologna is 30%).
A researcher who is not interested in registering the patent in his/her name may choose to do so through the University.
In this case the Intellectual Property Protection Service of the Knowledge Transfer Office carries out the registration of patents obtained for research at the University. The service carries out the following activities:
- support to researchers for any information on the subject;
- acquisition of the disclosure of the invention before registration of the patent;
- assessment of the legal requirements for an invention to be patentable (novelty, originality and industriality);
- research on prior art;
- contact with the consultant for writing the patent;
- going through the University authorisation procedures for the management of the patent procedure at the expense of the University (Board of Directors and Investigation Committees).
To access the operations necessary to register a patent in the name and at the expense of the University please contact the office for:
disclosure (special form)
State of the art search
After obtaining the results of the state of the art search and after a pre-assessment of the nature and size of a potential market, the Service assesses the possibility of patenting the invention. If the decision is positive the Service contacts a reliable consultant to write the patent.
If a patent is registered in the name of the University, by law the researcher is the owner of the moral rights (in the patent document he/she is mentioned as the inventor) and is entitled to 50% of the net income obtained by the University for the commercial exploitation of the patent. Of the remaining 50%, 40% goes to the University and 10% to the structure to which the researcher belongs.
University Regulations on "inventions conceived or developed at the University" are partially repealed by current laws and are only applied if the patent is registered through the University.