Identification of intellectual assets

A research project often give rise to many different types of novel knowledge that can be seen as intellectual assets: data, methods, models, design, software and inventions. These can be utilised in many different ways but regardless which you choose, it’s important to think about who actually owns them, how to protect them and in what way you want to make them available to others.

Based on the research of Professor Ulf Petrusson (Göteborgs universitet), the Innovation office has developed a tool for making an inventory of your intellectual assets: Intellectual Assets Inventory.  

For a researcher, an inventory of his or her intellectual assets, provides a way for communicating their research to potential partners and financiers. It also provides a good starting point for collaboration agreements, since it will be much more clear what you bring into the project in terms of so-called background. Also, it raises questions about strategic choices concerning how different assets should be utilised and which innovation processes to use in order to create the most impact.