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Visit: 60 Corporate Woods, Suite 380   |    Email: URVenturesInfo@urmc.rochester.edu    |   Phone: 585-276-6600

Faculty & Researchers

University of Rochester Faculty & Researchers

Disclose, protect, develop and commercialize your invention.

Disclose Your Invention

Welcome!

Every day UR researchers make important discoveries that have the potential to change the world. URVentures has the expertise, resources, and connections to help take your invention from idea to reality.

At URVentures, our focus is on commercialization – bringing a new product to market. To do this we protect the intellectual property arising from research at the University, collaborate with researchers to develop and de-risk the technology, and then market and seek to license those technologies to companies who have the resources to continue their development and bring them to market.

Start Here:

I think I've Invented Something!

As a condition of federal and sponsor grant obligations, and under its Intellectual Property Policy, the University requires employees and certain categories of students to disclose inventions to the URVentures office. Generally speaking, an invention is anything made by the “hand of man” that is new, useful, and not obvious. It could be a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.

Not sure if your idea is an invention? URVentures is happy to discuss your discovery informally. Contact us and we will set up a meeting with you.

I Have a Public Disclosure

Before you discuss, publish, present, or otherwise disclose your discovery to others outside the University, please contact us for guidance. We may need to seek patent or other protection of your idea. Public disclosure before seeking patent protection could adversely affect the rights to your idea.

What's Next?

After an invention is disclosed to URVentures, a licensing manager, and often, an IP attorney, will be assigned to your case. The team will work with you to better understand the technology and the field. They will then evaluate the patentability and commercial potential of your project. If the technology is determined to be both patentable and commercially viable, then URVentures will work with an outside IP attorney to prosecute the IP. After the initial patent application is filed with the patent office, URVentures will continue to search for industry partners, obtain feedback, and assist in the prosecution of the application. The researcher is expected to continue to gather data to support the application and collaborate with URVentures in discussions with industry partners and others for commercialization efforts. 

 

Read more about our process.

Disclose your invention
Technology Transfer
URV Process
Internal Resources