Instructions for Completing the UCLA Invention Report Form

Contact the UCLA Office of Intellectual Property Administration by phone (310) 794-0558 or fax (310) 794-0638 for additional information or assistance in completing the Invention Report.

1. Create a short title, sufficiently descriptive to identify the general nature of the invention without revealing specific details that would enable others to reproduce it. A four-to eight-word length is about right.

2. Provide a brief summary which addresses the essential nature of the invention and which would enable another person working in the field to reproduce the invention. Point out its novel features. Do not withhold any key elements of the invention, as a complete description is essential to an enforceable patent.

3. Provide approximate number of months and dollar amount spent to date developing the invention.

4.-5. Funding and use of proprietary resources and materials often carries patent obligations. Be sure to include all outside agencies, organizations, or companies that actually provided any supply, or expense funding to any inventor for the research that led to the conception or first actual reduction to practice of the invention. (Do not list any funding source gratuitously.) Please attach a copy or summary of any written or oral agreement, such as a biological materials transfer agreement, into which you or other University personnel entered in order to obtain any proprietary material used to make or develop your invention.

NOTE: Failure to provide complete information on funding sources may result in delayed processing of your disclosure and/or difficulty in the University's fulfilling its legal obligations to research sponsors.

6-9 This information is legally important for determining priority of inventorship and/or legal "bars" to patenting. As a general rule, public disclosure, in any manner, before the date a formal patent application is actually filed in a national patent office, automatically destroys patent rights in most foreign countries. Receipt of you Invention Disclosure Form by the Office of Intellectual Property Administration (University Patent Office) is not the same as the filing of a patent application. (While United States patent law allows inventors up to one year to file patent applications after first printed publication, public use or sale, the loss of foreign rights often is very important to potential industrial licensees.)

10. List literature references that most closely describe the state of the related art prior to your invention. While you are not required to make a search of the literature, such a search by you will assist in the evaluation of your invention.

11. Describe any plans you may have to further develop the invention.

12. Complete the requested information, and obtain signatures of the inventors. List as inventors those individuals who, individually or jointly, contributed either to the conception or reduction to practice of your invention. In the event that the University files a patent application, actual inventorship will be determined as a matter of law by a patent attorney. (Do not list any inventor gratuitously. The rules for inclusion are not the same as a scientific publication.)

"Inventors" not employed 100% by the University may also have obligations to their employers which will require coordination. Please identify these other employers. For example, Veterans Administration employees must submit VA disclosure forms to the local VA facility as well as disclosing to the University.

13. Obtain the signatures of two technically qualified witnesses who have read and understood the Invention Report Form. Use University of California employees whenever possible.

NOTE: ORIGINAL SIGNATURES are required for items 12 and 13. If a co-inventor is not available to sign due to unavoidable circumstances, please so indicate.