For Faculty - Resources & Education

Protecting Your Research Results

In most cases, patents are the preferred intellectual property protection mechanism for research results. However, sometimes, it is more appropriate to take advantage of other intellectual property protection mechanisms such as copyrights or trade secrets. For example, a new cell line may be best protected by simply not distributing it to anyone except a licensee, while the products of that cell line may be freely made available to other researchers. In this case, patent protection would be less effective because its cost would necessarily limit the territory in which protection could be obtained.

Read more about protecting research results.

Commercializing Research Results

One of the primary goals of the Office of Technology Development and Commercialization (OTDC) is to enter into royalty-producing license agreements, i.e., contracts allowing companies to make, use, develop and/or sell Temple-owned inventions. With this aim, OTDC continuously refines its marketing surveys with the dual purpose of establishing the commercial value of the invention and of locating potential licensees. All of this information is shared with the inventors on a regular basis. Read more about the role of OTDC and inventors, legal review of agreements, and various types of agreements.

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