Intellectual property rights are a powerful tool to facilitate R&D collaboration between VUB research teams, society and industry. Therefor it is crucial to consider your IP rights in time during the valorisation process, when you are developing your research results towards commercial applications.

Intellectual property rights prevent unauthorized use of your research results by third parties and as such allow you to determine (through negotiation) the conditions of research collaboration, attract funding or investment. They allow VUB and yourself to profit from commercial exploitation and - last but not least - safeguard your freedom to operate.

There are several types of IP rights. Proper understanding and strategic combination of these types of IP - including publications of your research results - guarantee best outcome and fit with your R&D and valorization strategy. Contact VUB Tech Transfer for further advice.

Above all, please contact us about the possibilities before publishing your research. Watch the recording of the introduction about IP Rights here

• Patents
• Trademarks
• Designs
• Trade secrets / confidential know-how
• Copyrights

• FOD Economie
• BOIP
• EUIPO
• WIPO

Adequate documentation of your research results is essential for obtaining or using the necessary IP rights.

• Lab notebook: Important to establish date of invention, inventors and documentation of research work.
  Order your lab notebook.
• Idea or concept: Consider submitting an i-DEPOT prior to disclosing any idea or concept (including e.g. research ideas, inventions, algorithms, software code, designs, questionnaires, methods and processes, etc) to third parties. Registration of an idea or concept through e.g. i-DEPOT helps greatly in documenting prior confidential information to be disclosed under a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA). An i-DEPOT is not an intellectual property right. It is just a means of registration. The information disclosed in an i-DEPOT cannot be publicly accessed by any third party.

• Non Disclosure Agreement
• Confidentiality of Bachelor/Master students:
  Bachelor/Master students are often involved in R&D work within VUB research teams and have access to VUB confidential information. As VUB is often bound by confidentiality towards our R&D partners, students should also be bound by such confidentiality obligations when they are involved in such R&D partnership projects or when they are involved in research being developed towards further valorization.