Offer of services and cooperation TTO for scientists

Services for scientists

TTO offers its services and cooperation to any worker and students with an interesting and innovative idea or interest in providing professional services, including the conduct of a clinical trial.

Technology Transfer Centre NIMH CZ assists scientists, doctors and other active academics and professionals in putting quality and innovative results of their activities into practice. TTO NIMH CZ provides its services to any employee with an interesting innovative idea or interest in providing professional services to companies and research organizations.

With scientists – authors and originators – with whom we decide to cooperate and further develop their ideas, we draw up a contract in which, among other things, we clearly state the amount of remuneration – share – in future revenues from successful commercial use.

Mandatory offer of invention

In accordance with legal requirements, each new invention is offered to those interested in use and cooperation, after ensuring the protection of intellectual property and approval by the Commercialization Council.

All employees of any public organization have a legal obligation to immediately offer their employer an invention, improvement proposal, utility or industrial design, computer program that arose within or in connection with the work performed for such an employer.

Employees of the National Institute of Mental Health are obliged to do so through the Technology Transfer Center NIMH CZ through the forms that you can find below and also in the Downloadssection.

Evaluation of the research result

Ideas and results are objectively and impartially evaluated in terms of scientific innovation as well as practical application and commercial potential. During the evaluation, we use our rich experience, consultations with domestic and foreign experts in technology transfer, but we also use standardized computational approaches.

By combining individual perspectives, we get a critical and objective evaluation, which allows us to get an idea of the possible further targeting of projects and research right at the beginning of the project at the birth of the idea.

Most scientists and researchers work very well with information sources within their expertise – with scientific databases and publications, closely monitor and evaluate the activities of leading researchers within their expertise in the professional press, at conferences, as well as within personal ties and academic cooperation.

TTO NIMH CZ brings other, less common in common academic practice, information sources and brings new perspectives on the same scientific or practical area of research and development and thus, among other things, seeks out and evaluates:

Current state of the art from patent and non-patent literature

How does the evaluated research result compare to the technologies used and emerging?
Is it really new?
Does it really provide a better solution?

Up-to-date market and business information

How many companies are there that deal with this area of technology?
What are their business results?
Where are these companies directing their investments?
Is this a new, saturated or growing market?
What are the alternatives?
How much better is the new solution?
Who will want to put your technology into practice and offer it on the market?
What tendencies do companies and experts in the field anticipate?
Is the market ready for the new solution?

Size of the problem solved – epidemiology

How many cases that the new technology solves occur in the Czech Republic? And Europe?
And the world? Where is the highest incidence?
Is the number of cases rising or decreasing?
What affects the frequency?

Readiness of the technology for use in practice

What concrete steps still need to be taken before the new solution reaches customers or patients?
How time-consuming and costly are these steps?
What are the risks in terms of safety, and efficacy?
Does a new technology require fundamental new knowledge or skills for doctors or businesses to use it?
How many steps do I need to take from "academic sources" to find a serious buyer for the technology?

Here you can look into the forms with which we evaluate each new research result before we start working with it further.

Protection of intellectual property

TTO ensures the preparation, processing, negotiation of ensuring the protection of intellectual property and the establishment of a sufficiently strong industrial-legal and copyright position for further commercialization strategy or project implementation and business development.

Technology Transfer Centre NIMH CZ ensures the preparation, processing, negotiation of legal provision of inventions, technologies, results of cooperation with companies on request to all research teams and workplaces as well as individual employees.

The following types of contracts, as appropriate, are standard contractual safeguards for the relevant language versions:

Technology Transfer Centre NIMH CZ in cooperation with a suitable patent attorney, compiles patent applications and similar applications to ensure the legal protection of new technologies and, in countries and regions, according to an individually compiled patent law strategy.

Commercialisation

Individual commercialization strategies are prepared individually for a specific project. At the same time, emphasis is placed on obtaining objective and high-quality feedback from experienced and motivated external experts with successful experience in the field of technology transfer in Life Science.

Technology Transfer Centre NIMH CZ has built a system of effective transfer of research results into practice, which, based on the experience gained from the course of solving already running commercialization projects and good practice from foreign top workplaces, is constantly improving. For each specific case, the individual ways and methods of commercialization are adapted, but the basic scheme and the core of the procedure remains.

We have introduced a simple low-cost model of very fast commercialization – focusing on early communication with potential buyers, allowing the technology to be appropriately adjusted to the demand of potential customers or handed over to foreign partners without major costs, leaving only a minority part of the remuneration, or a quick termination of activity, thus preventing the waste of financial resources and time of people – both researchers and members of the Technology Transfer Center team NIMH CZ.

To give you a basic idea, each technology usually goes through these phases and decisive points:

Invention offer

We get an Offer of Invention – together with the originators we compile the most accurate idea of the invention, its possible uses, limitations and properties.

Evaluation

We carry out or acquire an expert evaluation of the potential of the technology in terms of practical application possibilities and market opportunities, followed by a mandatory decision: acceptance/rejection of the technology for commercialization.

Strategy

We will draw up strategies and plans for commercialization, together we will establish checkpoints, key activities and success criteria for each subsequent phase.

Application for invention

We prepare and submit the first application for the invention, sometimes we do so later, or later we modify the application, replace it with a better one, in short, so that the resulting offer to the potential candidate is as strong as possible.

Proof of concept

We take appropriate steps increasing the value of the invention for the future interested party and verify the utility properties of the technology, acquire and improve prototypes (so-called Proof of Concept), adapt the technology to the customs and needs of the market. We also often provide financing for this highly risky phase.

Interested person

We actively offer and look for a suitable candidate.

License

We negotiate the terms of the license with the found interested party so that they are mutually beneficial.

Testing

The licensing partner registers the technology, officially tests it in order to bring it to the market, we provide appropriate support and consultations.

Money from the license

After launch, we monitor compliance with the license agreement, accept money from the license and distribute contractually given shares among the originators.

We negotiate the terms of the license with the found interested party so that they are mutually beneficial.

Business development

We follow the latest global trends and products in the field of Mental Health and Life Science, analyze market opportunities and together with researchers NIMH CZ we propose the development of products and services completely original and competitive on a global scale. For these new products and services, we help to identify and establish strategic partnerships of entities from the application sphere.

Project cooperation and financing

TTO helps to found suitable sources of funding for practically applicable projects based on the individual needs and ideas of researchers. We have extremely successful experience in using national, European and multinational grant titles, including cooperation with private investment groups and science donors.

Legal services

We provide scientists with basic legal services and orientation in the issues of intellectual property protection, patent application processes at the Industrial Property Office, EPO, EUIPO, WIPO and other patent authorities. We also deal with legal issues related to the establishment of spin-off companies in the public/academic environment, litigation resolution in the area of IP protection and other related legal topics. In more complex cases, we cooperate with leading Czech and foreign experts on patent / copyright and related issues.