Frequently Asked Questions

An invention is, for example, a new device, a new substance, a new process or a new use involving new technical features (components, arrangements or process steps). These new technical features must always have a technical effect. Otherwise, they constitute a work result. Mere ideas, rules of the game, business models or algorithms are not inventions either.

If you are an employee at KIT, you must inform your employer about your inventions in good time before any planned publication or other disclosure of the invention to third parties. IRM is the contact person authorized by the Presidential Board for industrial property rights matters at KIT, i.e. also for the notification of inventions and patent matters. Please contact the patent unit at IRM-IPM, who will familiarize themselves with your invention and advise you. You can also complete the invention disclosure form without advice and send it to IRM by internal mail. However, we recommend that you consult IRM-IPM before completing the form. If your invention is the result of a contract with a third party (e.g. third-party funded project), we strongly advise you to contact us. All details of the relevant contractual relationship must be included in the invention disclosure at the latest.

If you are employed (employee, civil servant) at KIT, you must inform your employer about your invention and submit a complete invention disclosure. Your point of contact for this is IRM-IPM. Please be sure to use the Invention disclosure form and the associated data protection declaration for a complete notification. The invention disclosure form helps you to provide all the information required for an assessment of the invention by asking specific questions. The invention itself should be described in sufficient detail so that a patent application can be created from it. If you have problems completing the invention disclosure form, please contact the patent units.

An invention disclosure received by IRM-IPM is checked for completeness, patentability and commercial exploitability (e.g. via projects, licensing or spin-offs). If the invention is not fully reported, the inventors involved are informed and requested to do so. The invention should be presented in such a way that a property right application (patent and utility model application) can be created from it. If all the information is included, a decision will be made within 4 months (this is a statutory deadline) as to whether KIT will apply for a patent for the invention (claim) or whether you and, if applicable, your co-inventors can freely dispose of your invention (release).

Inventions by KIT employees (employees, civil servants) for which KIT files a patent or utility model application are generally remunerated. You can read about the conditions and rules for the remuneration and its amount in the PAL guidelines in the guidelines for technology transfer at KIT.

Claiming an invention means that the rights to an invention reported to KIT are transferred to KIT. KIT is then entitled to either apply for industrial property rights for the invention itself or to sell it to a third party. A release, on the other hand, means that the inventor can either register the invention himself and at his own expense.

A technical property right is based on an invention that is new compared to the state of the art, is based on an inventive step and is industrially applicable. As the inventor, you are certainly familiar with the relevant literature in the field in which the invention was made (including your own publications). However, it is also worth conducting a brief search in freely accessible databases. You can use simple keywords to search for both German and international (e.g. European or US) patents.

Inventors are all persons who have made an (inventive) contribution to an invention. It is important that "courtesy names" are avoided at all costs. Only someone who has invented or co-invented is an inventor. In some countries, e.g. the USA, a patent is invalid and will be revoked if it turns out that the named inventors are not involved in the invention.

An invention with external colleagues, i.e. with co-inventors who are not employees (employees, civil servants) of KIT, is to be treated in the same way as an invention in which only KIT employees are involved. You must report your invention to IRM-IPM, if possible at the same time and with the same content as your external colleagues report to their respective employers. It is best to state what percentage of the invention is attributable to each inventor and where the inventors come from. IRM then takes care of all the contractual matters that need to be dealt with before filing a patent application.

If you have made an invention and want to publish something about it, you must report your invention to IRM-IPM in advance. Remember that your invention will be carefully checked for patentability and usability. IRM employees from the IPM and TT departments are involved in this process. Once the patent application has been submitted to the patent office, there is nothing to prevent publication.

No, as long as the colleagues are all KIT employees. Students, scholarship holders or guest researchers are not usually included.

Inform the Intellectual Property team of this fact and be sure to coordinate the next steps. Above all, do not discuss any invention details without a written confidentiality agreement. Always conclude a non-disclosure agreement before passing on information! You can obtain templates for this from DE Recht.

There are several ways and different international rules. In Europe, software programs are generally protected by copyright. Under certain circumstances, patent protection may also be possible if there is a technical effect. If you have a specific question about this, it is best to seek advice from one of the patent professionals.

Patents are national property rights that are only effective within the framework of the respective national laws on industrial property protection. They must be applied for and paid for separately for each country via an authorized representative (patent attorney), usually in the national language.

With a few exceptions, the maximum possible term of a patent is 20 years from the date of application, provided that the maintenance fees are paid. It can take 2-3 years until the patent is granted, but the decisive date is the filing date.

A license is a grant of rights of use that can be restricted in terms of subject matter or territory, for example. A licensee acquires the right to use protected intellectual property of KIT (e.g. industrial property rights, copyrights) in his company. If a company uses a protected KIT technology without first licensing it, it is in breach of KIT's rights.

A license agreement regulates the rights and obligations of the respective contractual partners, in particular the scope of the right of use, the license fees and other details, such as liability and warranty.

• Property right applications
• Industrial property rights
• Know-how
• Software

Know-how is licensable if it meets the criteria of "commercially applicable", "documented", "secret" and "essential to the technology". We have summarized some information on this in the information sheet on know-how. Since publications are not secret, they do not constitute know-how.

Yes, as long as the rights of use are held by KIT. There are many ways to license software:

• Open source licensing is an umbrella term for several license models that grant users or licensees free of charge rights to run the software without restriction and for any purpose, to copy it and pass it on to any third parties and even to develop the software further and then share improved versions with third parties, although the latter must be done under the same conditions as the open source license of the original project in the case of copyleft open source licenses.
• Proprietary paid software licenses are classic license agreements by means of which software is licensed out to third parties for a fee. IRM-IPM deals with this type of license agreement.

The strategic decision to publish software developed by KIT under FOSS licenses is made at KIT by the respective OU management in consultation with the employees who develop the software. In the case of FOSS licensing, the OU management is responsible for appropriate rights management. At the same time, the possibility of conventional "proprietary" exploitation of software with paid license conditions should also be considered as an alternative. Detailed information can be found in the handout for open source software.

The potential commercialization channels for the software should be discussed and identified with your supervisor. IRM can support you here. It is important that you deal with the rights clearance regarding the software and the installed components right from the start (so-called License Compliance Management) and keep a corresponding SBOM (Software Bill Of Materials).

The one does not exclude the other, on the contrary: For example, in addition to research software being offered as open source or open core, better complementary releases or supplements can be offered proprietarily for a license fee. Furthermore, if the exploitation right lies with KIT, a code that is actually copyleft-licensed can alternatively be licensed proprietary via so-called "dual licensing", so that the licensee can incorporate the code into its products independently of the copyleft.

In addition, a copyleft or permissively licensed open source code can also enable you to build a user and contributor community around your software project and/or that you are commissioned to make further developments for a fee (customizing) or that you offer commercial service contracts for your software project.  

The license team  is in charge of licensing agreements for out-licensing for KIT in cooperation with the scientific institutes and the corresponding organizational units at KIT (third-party funding process). At the beginning of a potential licensing process, the KIT license managers negotiate all contract details together with the licensees on the basis of industry-related, individual and standard market license models.

Yes, spin-offs are expressly welcome at KIT. The IRM topic area Start-ups & Investments (GRB) is a competent contact for this special area of technology transfer.

Yes, our innovation managers at IRM-TMT will support and advise you in your search for licensees.

The online technology platform "RESEARCH TO BUSINESS" offers you uncomplicated access to new knowledge, innovative technical solutions and market-oriented research and development results from KIT. The portfolio includes current technology offers from various specialist areas and industries based on KIT know-how, inventions and property rights. New technology offers are regularly added to our "Marketplace of Innovations". We are looking for partners from industry – from large companies to small and medium-sized enterprises – who work together with KIT to create innovative products from or with the help of these technical solutions.

Technology offers are short exposés of application-oriented technical solutions from KIT. They present technologies, processes and concepts in a compact, generally understandable form for the target group of industry – with a view to possible applications and targeted sectors.

The technology offer serves to arouse initial interest among industry representatives and technology scouts and to initiate contact. The aim is to initiate a potential collaboration from the initial contact – be it for cooperation projects, contract research or licensing of the technology. You are welcome to contact the innovation managers listed in the technology offer without obligation.

To make sure you don't miss any new technology offers, subscribe to our regular newsletter and the customizable technology alert. In the technology platform, you can filter the portfolio of all technology offers with a single click to find suitable technology offers – by sector, topic or keyword.

KIT has a lot to offer – the scientific institutes generate countless ideas, know-how and inventions for new services, software and technologies based on materials, devices and processes that can form the basis for cooperation with industry. The spectrum of technologies ranges from basic concepts, proof-of-concepts and demonstrators to pre-development prototypes. In collaboration or by granting rights of use to your company, these potential solutions can be further developed to market maturity according to your needs.

You are welcome to contact the innovation managers listed in the technology offer without obligation. In addition, downloads such as patent specifications, scientific papers or presentations and posters of the inventors are often available for you in the technology platform. Here you will find more detailed information on the individual technical solutions.

If you have specific questions about technical details or suitability for your portfolio, you can contact the KIT innovation managers directly. As a rule, after the initial orientation steps, a personal exchange with the inventors or the responsible scientists is organized, e.g. by telephone, video call or a meeting on site at the KIT institute. This exchange, possibly with several iterations, may be secured by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). KIT provides a draft NDA as a basis for this.

If the first steps are positive and you are looking to collaborate with KIT, the next steps depend on the individual situation and type of cooperation. The Innovation and Relations Management team supports the initiation of the project and assists with the drafting of the contracts to be negotiated (cooperation agreements, options and license and takeover agreements, etc.).

Information on the forms of cooperation can be found on the transfer path page.

In order to create a benefit for society from the valuable research and development results of KIT, we are looking for partners from industry who will work with us to create innovative products from these technologies – from large companies to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We would particularly like to motivate SMEs to cooperate with KIT in order to fully exploit the synergies. As a company, you can make use of KIT's innovation resources without having to expand your own cost-intensive research and development area. A wide variety of forms of cooperation are available. With the help of the innovation and license managers at KIT, cooperation agreements can be designed very individually and flexibly. Take advantage of these opportunities and contact us.

The thematically oriented innovation managers are available to you as contacts for initial orientation at KIT. They will help you with your individual questions about technology transfer and the forms of cooperation in defined subject areas. To clarify technical issues, the innovation managers will put you in touch with the right scientific contact person. The innovation managers support the initiation of projects and, if necessary, moderate ongoing collaborations. They search specifically for information on suitable technologies and arrange contacts with inventors and scientists at KIT.

The Technology Platform contains a selection of technologies for which KIT is specifically looking for cooperation partners. The categories of the platform and the listed offers give you a first impression of the diversity of applied research at KIT. New technology offers are added on an ongoing basis and expired offers are removed from the portfolio.

However, the stock of patented technologies, know-how and research topics is much larger. Every year, new industrial property rights are applied for or granted by KIT. Through personal contact with our innovation managers, you can be provided with specifically researched information on suitable technologies as well as contacts to inventors and scientists at KIT.

Please feel free to contact the innovation managers without obligation or use our contact form, your request will be processed as quickly as possible.

The thematic centers at KIT, such as the Energy Center, bundle the central cross-divisional research activities and represent the strategic research fields of KIT to the outside world. The participating institutes and research groups carry out the research work independently and communicate about it, e.g. via their websites and social media. The scientists work together on an interdisciplinary basis and thus create a new quality of research from which you as a company can also benifit.