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Internal

Invention Disclosure

Use this when Prof. Chory has asked you to write up an invention. It asks for everything Duke's Office for Translation and Commercialization (OTC) needs, plus what we need to sort out inventorship. Prof. Chory reviews it with you and files it with OTC.

Inventorship is not authorship

Authorship credits everyone who did the work and wrote the paper. Inventorship is a legal question under US patent law: an inventor contributed to the conception of the idea in at least one patent claim. Running experiments someone else designed, collecting data, writing, or supplying reagents does not on its own make someone an inventor. An author may not be an inventor, and someone who is not on the paper can be. The patent attorney settles final inventorship when the claims are written.

Who to list here

Duke's form asks for contributors, which is broader: anyone who made a significant intellectual contribution to conceiving the invention or reducing it to practice. List those people, inside or outside Duke, and say what each one did. If you are unsure about someone, name them in step 4 and explain. Prof. Chory decides, not you.

How we split it

Our default is an even split among the Duke contributors, and Duke assumes the same when no percentages are given. If you think a different split is fair, say why. Talk to everyone you list before you submit, so nobody hears about it first from OTC.

Undergraduates are different

An undergraduate technically owns what they invent in the lab unless our grants paid for that work. Duke's form asks whether each contributor is an undergraduate or master's student for this reason. List them anyway, tell us how their time in the lab was supported, and Prof. Chory will work it out with OTC. Never leave someone off to keep it simple.

Questions about Duke's policy go to OTC at otcquestions@duke.edu. Questions about this lab go to Prof. Chory.

Not connected yet. The submission endpoint has not been deployed, so this form will not send anything. Deploy scripts/apps-script/DisclosureEndpoint.gs, put the /exec URL into DISC_ENDPOINT in scripts/build_disclosure.py, and re-run it.

1About you

Who is submitting. You will get a copy of everything you send.

2The invention

3Public disclosure

Anything shown in public before a patent application is filed can cost patent rights: right away in most countries, and after one year in the US. That includes posters, talks, preprints, abstracts, theses and defenses, and conversations with companies or investors. List anything that has already happened or is coming up, even if it seems minor.

Has any part of this already been shared outside the lab?

Is anything coming up? A talk, poster, preprint, paper, defense, or company meeting.

4Contributors

Everyone who contributed to conceiving the invention or reducing it to practice, at Duke or elsewhere, including you. For each person, say what they actually contributed. Order does not matter.

Royalty share among Duke contributors

    Duke divides the inventors' share only among Duke contributors, so people outside Duke are listed but not counted here.

    Have you talked with everyone listed about being included, and about the split?

    5Funding

    Duke has to report inventions to whoever paid for the work, so list every outside source that supported it: federal and foundation grants, your own fellowship (F31, F32, K00, GRFP and similar), and any industry agreement. If you do not know a grant number, leave it blank and Prof. Chory will fill it in.

    Was any non-Duke funding used?

    6Supporting documents

    Anything that helps explain the invention or who did what: manuscript drafts, fellowship or grant text you wrote, posters, slides, figures, notebook pages, and MTAs. Up to 25 MB per file. They go to a private lab Drive folder and to Prof. Chory, not to Duke.

    Drop files here or choose files PDF, Word, PowerPoint, images, anything else that helps

      Files cannot be kept in a saved draft, so add them last.

      7Anything else