From 31st May- 5th July ZBM held training sessions organised with ITEMAS, a platform of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) which aims to support R&D&I in Biomedicine and Health Sciences. The 5 separate on-line training sessions came under the umbrella title ‘How to protect your ideas and transfer them?’ and were aimed at researchers, managers and technicians of innovation units, managers of start ups and company managers, with the objective of addressing the different types of industrial and intellectual property, as well as looking into strategies for the protection of research results.

Session 1
‘Brief introduction to the patent system’ by Bernabé Zea

In this first introductory session Bernabé discussed modalities of technology protection: patents, secrecy and copyright. patentability requirements and exclusions, what is required to obtain a strong patent, ownership and inventorship of a patent and the Differences in protection between Europe and the USA.

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Session 2
‘Diagnostic methods’ by Carlos Maíllo

Carlos spoke about the challenge of obtaining broad and effective protection for biomarker-based inventions and also the complicated scenario of protection of diagnostic methods in the U.S. and possible protection strategies in this territory.

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Session 3
‘Animal and cellular models. Antibodies and Hybridomas, Stem cells.’’ by Carolina Janer

In this session Carolina elaborated on patent protection of animal and cellular models, whether to patent or to keep as a trade secret as well as possible complications of protection of natural products in the USA and viable protection strategies in this territory.

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Session 4
‘Medical devices. Software and algorithms’ by Josep Comes

The various types of protection for software and algorithms, aspects to be taken into account when choosing the protection modality, patentability of software and artificial intelligence as well as protection of medical devices were topics that Josep detailed in his session.

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Session 5
‘The path from biomedical discovery to commercialization of a product’ by Bernabé Zea

The final closing session involved a review of the IP protection procedure, confidentiality and material transfer agreements, ideas on license negotiation, preparation of Term Sheets and main clauses of a license agreement.

The ZBM expert’s sessions included related case studies to illustrate each field in order to highlight the complexities of the IP world and present feasible solutions.

For more information about ITEMAS click here.