Complete this Consultation form so that UW CoMotion can best match our resources to answer your questions. You should receive a response within two business days. If you do not hear back from us, please email uwinvent@u.washington.edu and let us know.
What We Do
IP Advising, Protection & Licensing
IP Advising, Protection & Licensing
Submit a Record of Innovation
Submit this ROI form to disclose innovations to UW CoMotion, including mechanical devices, materials, software, digital media and copyrighted works. If you have questions, please submit a Consultation Request before completing the ROI form.
Work With Us -- Even Before You Disclose an Innovation
By talking and working with you months or even years before you disclose an innovation, we can help you maximize the impact of your work without compromising your research goals.
If it’s your first time working with us, the first step is to submit a Consultation Request so that we can match you with an Innovation Manager knowledgeable about your area of research. Our Innovation Managers have advanced degrees and extensive experience in a broad range of high-demand technical areas.
If you have questions feel free to reach out to us at uwinvent@uw.edu or (206) 543-3970.
WORK WITH US EARLY TO MAXIMIZE IMPACT
How We Partner
Engage • Assess • Protect • Develop • License
E N G A G E
CoMotion’s Role
As the first stage of the Innovation Process, it is a critical point of connection between you and the Innovation Manager. An Innovation Manager will consult with you on your innovation to determine next steps and collaborate on possibilities. We will review steps to protect your research for:
- Upcoming public disclosures such as presentations or publications
- Sharing any related material or software outside the UW
- Intellectual property requirements
Innovator’s Role
Actively connect to establish a relationship with the CoMotion office prior to any activities related to your innovation, if possible. Schedule a meeting now to discuss all of your options!
Results
An in-person meeting with your Innovation Manager in order to establish the relationship, review the process, and identify next steps.
Resources for UW Researchers
The formative stages before launching a new technology company typically last 12-18 months. Before launch a UW Startup Project prepares its market strategy, strengthens its startup team, identifies key milestones toward securing customers or investors, and builds prototypes to support these milestones. CoMotion® provides planning and resources to promote higher-quality startup projects.
CoMotion also makes resources available to young UW Startup Companies. Although a startup opportunity may be compelling enough to launch, it usually faces a challenging period of refining its offering in order to engage early customers and grow toward stability. By providing a comprehensive system of resources for technology entrepreneurship, we have resources available for other distribution models.
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Impact Through Training
Innovation training exposes the University of Washington and greater Seattle area communities to innovative thinking through workshops and events which integrate, for example, design thinking and lean canvas methods. Innovation Training also supports the University of Washington’s Innovation Imperative by developing programs that expose students, faculty, and staff to innovative thinking and the innovation ecosystem.
Through workshops based on our innovation practices and tools, we help various University of Washington and community organizations find inventive solutions to challenges they encounter. We work with individual teams and organizations to create custom workshops that address the unique challenges and opportunities they face.
We also offer ideathons, which are short, intensive, workshop-like experiences for students to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. Ideathons transform ideas into engaging and targeted learning experiences. Working in teams, students use design thinking and innovative learning practices to ideate on possible solutions to a given issue. Our goal in offering ideathons is to work toward inclusive innovation.
For more information contact Magali Eaton at colearn@uw.edu.
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Biological Materials
The Biological Materials portfolio consists of non-patented biological materials such as transgenic mice, antibodies, cell lines, and vectors. In the majority of cases we will not file for patent protection of such materials as they can be effectively commercialized in the absence of patent protection.
Biological Materials that will be transferred to non-profits or universities would go through our Agreements Group under the standard outgoing Materials Transfer Agreement (MTA).
To transfer these tools to for-profit institutions such as a biotech or pharmaceutical company, we need to have appropriate agreements in place. We may be able to make the Biological Material available for a fee as a research reagent (sold to other end users) or for internal research use only. However, there may be third-party rights involved in the material -- for example:
- third-party materials may have been used to generate this research tool
- the tool was jointly made with another institution, or
- there may be patent protection around a component of the tool (e.g. GFP for a reporter mouse).
For the transfer of any Biological Material, the UW Investigator will be responsible for preparing and shipping the material.
Quick links:
- Fabbing
- For UW Startups
- Which path forward
- Keeping a Lab notebook
- About IP & Patents
- CoMotion Innovation Gap Fund
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The Rules
LINKS TO POLICIES AND REPORTS AT THE UW AND STATE OF WASHINGTON.
The Executive Orders (EO) provide the foundation for the policy at the UW. Details about current operation and implementation are found in the Administrative Policy Statements (APS) and Grants Information Memoranda (GIM). The references provided below are intended only as a starting point on this broad topic. See the UW Policy Directory for a comprehensive treatment of the policies governing activities at the UW.
- UW Patent, Invention, and Copyright Policy (EO36)
- Technology Transfer (APS 59.4)
- Policy on Sales of Goods and Services (APS 59.5)
- Research Data (GIM 37)
- Employee Responsibilities and Employee Conflict of Interest (EO32)
- Outside Professional Work Policy (EO57)
- Financial Conflict of Interest Policy (GIM 10)
- UW Ethics Guide
- WA Ethics in Public Service (RCW 42.52)
- 2005 State Ethics Act - the safe harbor provision
RELATED RESOURCES
- National Academies, Managing University Intellectual Property in the Public Interest, 2010. Free download.
- AAUP, 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure
- AAUP, 1999 Statement on Copyright
- AAU, Intellectual Property and New Media Technologies: a Framework for Policy Development at AAU Institutions, 1999
- AAUP, Intellectual Property Issues for Faculty, 2004
- Supreme Court opinion in Stanford-v-Roche, 2011
- Bayh-Dole Act, 1980
- AAUP, Summary of Recommendations: 56 Principles to Guide Academy-Industry Engagement, 2014
- AUTM, Nine Points to Consider in Licensing University Technology, 2007
- FAQs
