Inventions must be reported to the employing company within an existing employment relationship.

Experience shows that the right time for an invention disclosure can be of great importance for the development of your technology, as this is the only way to harmonize patent and project terms. We therefore recommend that you contact us prior to the legally required notification and take advantage of our individual invention consulting by our Innovation Management.

Useful information

• Consequences of an invention notification
  From the time of the notification, the Employer Invention Act gives the employer four months to decide whether your invention is formally patentable and whether it provides you, the department or the university with adequate added value justifying the high cost of patenting it. If the university decides to make use of it, it is obliged to make a patent application in Germany and to pay inventor's compensation to the inventors in the event it leads to financial utilization. If the university decides against it, the invention is released and transferred to the inventors.
• Inventor assessment
  In order to opt for or against a claim, your reported invention will be subjected to a novelty search by us or a service provider appointed by us – a patent exploitation agency specializing in your area of expertise – and the formal patenting criteria will be checked. After that we will – in cooperation with you – look for possible paths to utilize your technology and find the path that offers the greatest added value for all parties involved.
• Inventor’s compensation
  In case your employer registers an industrial property right for your invention, the inventor community will receive 30% of the utilization income of the university. In addition, each inventor, regardless of the route that the patent takes, retains the inventor's personal rights, e.g., the right to be named inventor in the patent.

In the event that you have already been advised by us or would like to choose the direct route without consulting, please use the internal form of RWTH Aachen University for the official invention notification: