One of the most common ways to protect certain types of inventions (like medical devices or new chemical compositions) is through patenting. This guide quickly explains the parts of a United States patent application which is filled through the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Generally, patents are divided into seven sections. The sections are as follows: Title Background: A description of the problem the invention hopes to solve, along with information on any previous inventions of a similar function (prior art). Summary: A concise description of the claims. Description of Drawings: A list of drawings that appear within the application. Description of Invention: A specific and often detailed description explaining how another could make and/or use the invention. Claim Set: The limits of patent protection; essentially, what aspects of the invention are going to be protected under the patent. Abstract: A general description of the invention under 150 words. In order to understand these sections, the following additional terms may be helpful: Application Number (or Serial Number): A unique number assigned to identify the patent application by the USPTO. This number has a specific format of eight digits; the first two digits are the series and the remaining
Continue readingAuthor: Linda Kesselring
Students: Looking for Writing Opportunities to Support My Journalism Ambitions
I began working at the Emory Office of Technology Transfer as a writing assistant during my sophomore year of college here. I was a pre-med turned journalism student, hungry for any writing opportunities I could get my hands on. Having spent the previous year taking courses in biology and organic chemistry, I was eager to take on the task of translating seemingly complex concepts into stories our readers would be interested in. The job’s intersection of science and writing was the ideal opportunity for me, someone interested in health and science journalism. I’ll be honest. When I first started the job, I wasn’t exactly sure what “technology transfer” actually meant. Through my time working in the office however, I’ve gotten to fully understand and appreciate OTT’s vital role in Emory’s standing as a leading research university. I’ve also gotten the opportunity to sit down and chat with some truly awe-inspiring, accomplished researchers and scientists about the exciting projects they’ve been working on. I wrote about Dawn Laney, a genetic counselor who wrote a series of books to help children understand genetic conditions. I covered the development of iCHOOSE Kidney, a mobile app that helps patients make decisions about treatment options
Continue readingOTT30: 1st Breakfast Club
2015 marks the 30th anniversary for Emory OTT and part of that celebration includes a series of blog posts highlighting important “firsts” for the office. This month we highlight the Emory Breakfast Club. In June of 2006, the first Breakfast Club meeting was held. “The idea was to find a better way to engage the business community with regards to licensing opportunities we had in the office. We created this event so that we could find a way to more regularly bring the business community together and pitch technologies to them” says Todd Sherer, Executive Director. The meeting is held twice a year and as its name implies first thing in the morning over breakfast. Sherer often describes the event as “a dating service for technologies.” How are the technologies picked: “We sit down as a group and ask ourselves ‘What technologies do we have that have a compelling story behind them?’”, adds Sherer. Three technologies were presented at the inaugural meeting: Therapeutic HIF-1 pathway inhibitors for use in cancer and macular degeneration ACE Inhibitors for use in cancer and infections Progesterone for use in traumatic brain injury Since its inception the event has been a wonderful success and become
Continue readingOur Blog is Two Years Old!
It’s almost hard to believe that our blog site is two years old (we started in March 2013). We started with the intention of posting twice a month to share hot topics in tech transfer, at Emory and beyond. Quickly we discovered that we had lots of ideas and started posting every week. There are now over 110 posts and approximately 5,000 page views. Over the past two years the site has seen a new platform, a new design, and a re-organization. But at the heart of everything is still the posts we share with our readers and we love hearing from our readers. We’ve shared our signature events like the Breakfast Club, Kauffman Series, and our Annual Celebration. There have been quarterly social media campaigns in which we share Emory expertise in areas such as infectious diseases, cancer, medical devices, and research tools. We’ve heard from our fearless leader of the office, Todd Sherer, in our From the Director series as well as from our fearless interns who have shared their insights about working in a tech transfer office and venturing out on their own. We hope that reading this blog and keeping up with Emory’s tech transfer comings
Continue readingSix Things to Know About Copyrights
There are plenty of myths and confusion around copyright law. Many people aren’t sure what a copyright covers and how it differs from other types of intellectual property (IP) protection like patents or trademarks. Although a blog is too short to go into all the specific details of copyright law, we hope to hit a few key highpoints here and help clarify what a copyright is and its function. A copyright differs from a patent or trademark in that it protects an original work of authorship. A patent protects inventions or discoveries and a trademark protects words, phrases, symbols, or designs identifying the source of the goods or services. In the United States, under the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C §§ 101 et seq) computer programs are literary works and may be filed as such, meaning that software is often protected via a copyright. You do not need to register or publish your work to gain copyright protection. A work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. A copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, systems or methods of doing
Continue readingOTT30: Our 1st Start-up Listed on NASDAQ & Russell 3000
2015 marks the 30th anniversary for Emory OTT and part of that celebration includes a series of blog posts highlighting important “firsts” for the office. This month we highlight our first start-up to be listed on both the NASDAQ Biotech Index and the Russell 3000 – Pharmasset. All startups share the same beginning – an idea, yet, of the many companies launched on good ideas, only a few experience success. Among these successful startups is Pharmasset, a biotech company founded in 1998 by Emory’s Raymond Schinazi, PhD and Dennis Liotta, PhD with assistance from OTT. Pharmasset was originally set out on developing new compounds for treating viral infections and cancer and more specifically spent considerable time focusing on the Hepatitis C virus. Hepatitis is an inflammation in the liver, and Hepatitis C (HCV) specifically is a contagious viral infection of the liver with symptoms ranging from mild to severe, lasting a few weeks to a lifetime, and being acute or chronic. Transmission is spread primarily through contact with infected blood. While Hepatitis A & B have vaccines, Hepatitis C unfortunately does not, so the focus is currently on treating the infection rather than preventing it. There are an estimated 3.2
Continue readingEmory Has an App for That!
As part of our month-long effort to highlight Emory’s work in the area of software, we are highlighting a brand new mobile app catalog that the University launched which offers one-stop shopping for all apps at Emory. The catalog allows Emory to distribute and maintain its mobile apps outside of the public marketplace for Android and Apple. Emory has more than 22,000 mobile devices accessing its network at any one time, but less than 1% of those devices are actually administered by the University. Because Emory is primarily a “bring your own device” employer, it wanted a way to help its constituents to access and download internally and externally available apps as easily as possible. The Mobile App Catalog was launched in late 2014 in a limited fashion that focused on development, testing, and focus groups. Now it is being launched campus-wide for all Emory University and Emory Healthcare staff, faculty, and students to use. Several of the key benefits to utilizing this app catalog are: The ability to manage and apply security polices without controlling the device, The ability to distribute apps not intended for public distribution, The ability to monitor and control access to apps. The Emory Mobile
Continue readingInterns: New Intro Boot Camp
Many scientists who obtain their PhD through rigorous coursework and excruciating time spent in the lab are unaware that they can apply their technical expertise in the burgeoning field of technology transfer. I am in the midst of this challenging transition from academia to technology transfer which means entering an entirely new world, one with which scientists, like myself, are very unfamiliar. Fortunately, I am in the trustworthy hands of the team at Emory University’s Office of Technology Transfer (OTT). Their internship program features introductory crash-courses that teach up-and-coming technology transfer professionals the lay of the land, from the basics of marketing and intellectual property to assessing real world technologies, their market size and potential patentability. The crash courses on marketing and the patent/intellectual property law sections were highly comprehensive. The first course helped translate the marketing language into something we could understand by detailing the vernacular we would use during our time in the program. After we felt comfortable with marketing, the Emory Patent Group introduced the cohort to the broad field of patent law in a course that covered everything from how to read patents to interpreting patent claims. It was very interesting learning about the exacting nature
Continue readingBIO 2015: A Beginner’s Perspective
The 2015 edition of BIO International Convention led us to Philly, where nearly 16,000 biotech industry leaders converged from around the world. As this was my first BIO I didn’t know what to expect. Despite all the preparation from my colleagues in OTT, the scale of the convention still amazed me. The first thing you can’t help but notice is the sheer size of the event. Walking into the exhibit hall gave me a sense of awe, but those first few steps only presented a small portion of all that was happening. A wide variety of expertise, presentations, give-aways, and food were on display courtesy of more than 1,800 exhibitors. To put that number into perspective, if you spent one minute with each exhibitor, it would take you 30 hours to speak with each one! Being an exhibitor in the Georgia Pavilion provided an opportunity for me to network with many people, from seasoned veterans of the biotechnology industry to students who were curious what a “tech transfer office” is. Conversations at the booths included patent reform in foreign countries, biosimilars legislation in Georgia, and “must-have” restaurants in Philly. One of the greatest things about being in the Georgia Pavilion,
Continue readingIt’s All BIO All Week 2015!
Emory OTT will be at the BIO International Convention, the largest conference for the biotech industry, in Philadelphia, PA birthplace of the United States and home of the Liberty Bell. Four members from our office, Executive Director Todd Sherer, Gayathri Srinivasan from the industry relations team, Panya Taysavang from the licensing team, and Quentin Thomas from the marketing team will all be there. It looks to be a busy and productive week! Our booth will be within the Georgia Pavilion again this year (Booth 2101). Someone from the team will be there each day and we look forward to visiting with old friends and making new ones. If you want an easy way to find us, click and use BIO’s handy map. The team has more than 30 partnering meetings set-up prior to flying north. We expect to have many great conversations about Emory research, technology, and start-ups. This week’s blog will be similar to last year’s BIO blog – each morning our blog will be updated with highlights and points of interest from the BIO meeting the previous day. We will also be tweeting up a storm too (@EmoryOTT), starting conversations & joining in on others. We hope you tune
Continue readingOTT30: Epivir – First anti-HIV Drug
2015 marks the 30th anniversary for Emory OTT and part of that celebration includes a series of blog posts highlighting important “firsts” for the office. This month we highlight Epivir™, Emory’s first anti-HIV approved drug. Developed by Emory faculty, Dennis Liotta, PhD and Raymond Schnazi, PhD, Epivir™ contains a compound called 3TC (lamivudine). This drug is in the class known as nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), this class of drugs interrupts the replication process of double-stranded viral DNA, resulting in the inability of HIV to multiply. In 1995 when this drug was approved OTT and the inventor’s believed this was the validation of the University’s antiviral research program and its role in HIV research. It was also believed that Epivir™ was at the forefront of the fight against HIV and had a bright future. Those predictions came true as Epivir™ was a ground breaking and widely prescribed drug and is currently contained in four FDA approved drugs used for the treatment of HIV. Since Epivir™ was approved and sold as singly 3TC has been approved to be sold in combination with zidovudine as Combivir®, in fixed-dose combination with zidovudine and abacivir sulfate as Trizivir® and, in fixed-dose combination with abacavir
Continue readingImportant Changes in OSP Contract Administration
As many of you know, Nikki Simmons, Director for Contracts in OSP, is leaving Emory to relocate with her family to another state. For this reason, I have been working closely with Kerry Peluso and Todd Sherer over the past few weeks to consider potential changes in the structure for managing industry contracts. Given the continued strong, national interest in academic & industry partnering at all levels, we have decided to change the reporting line for our industry contracting group to the Office of Technology Transfer. This will better align our industry contract negotiations, both clinical and non-clinical, with OTT’s focused outreach to companies looking to partner with Emory. The industry contracting function will continue to utilize the same processes it has in the past for working with RAS units, Office for Clinical Research, IRB, and other University units. OSP and OTT will work closely to share relevant knowledge and resources so that the change will be seamless. I fully expect the teams from both offices to work collaboratively to assure that our researchers can receive the support they need. In short, there will NOT be any change in the way a PI submits a contract or in the way
Continue readingOTT’s Own Cancer Survivor
To complete our month-long focus on cancer, we asked our own Connie Newsome, Senior Program Associate and Executive Assistant, to talk about her experience with breast cancer, including her time at the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University and how working in technology transfer influenced that experience. Thankfully Connie has been cancer free now for two and a half years. Connie, how were you originally diagnosed? I was diagnosed during an annual mammogram at Winship. When the results came back, I was diagnosed with Triple Negative Breast Cancer, stage 2. Shortly after that I saw a surgeon and an oncologist. Both of these physicians had credentials that were really high. I also consulted with my internist who is one of Emory’s lead internists. The treatment plan that was initially prescribed consisted of a regime of chemotherapy spread over 4 months, followed by radiation and surgery. My team of physicians gave me two options for radiation – one that consisted of 15 days the other of 30 days. After consideration and consulting with several of my family, friends, and colleagues, I decided to go with the 30 days of radiation. Once radiation and chemo were complete I went back for another
Continue readingWinning the Fight: Cancer Efforts at Emory
This month in our social media, we focus on cancer. So, why cancer you ask? Emory has a deep commitment to cancer research and patient care. One of the most prominent signs of the University’s commitment to cancer research and patient care is the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. But how did cancer centers start and what is our center’s impact? The National Cancer Institute (NCI) was initially established by Congress in 1937 as an independent institute dedicated to cancer research and in 1944 was moved under the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NCI had its scope and responsibilities broadened by the National Cancer Act of 1971 under President Nixon; this shift often being seen as the modern war on cancer. The NCI coordinates the National Cancer Program, which conducts and supports research, training, health information dissemination, and other programs with respect to the cause, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of cancer, rehabilitation from cancer, and the continuing care of cancer patients and the families of cancer patients.[i] (Check out this cool infographic about NCI.) In the 1960s, NCI, as recommended by Congress, formulated the NCI Cancer Centers model, to create unity of purpose, improve access to infrastructure, foster stability,
Continue readingOTT30: Emory Patent Group
2015 marks the 30th anniversary for Emory OTT and part of that celebration includes a series of blog posts highlighting important “firsts” for the office. This month we highlight the Emory Patent Group (EPG). The Emory Patent Group, our in-house patent department, was created within OTT in 2010. While there had been cursor consideration in previous years there was now a need to cut costs and this would have to be looked at in detail. “We looked at the numbers much more closely, evaluated them, and ran them by in-house counsel,” says Todd Sherer, Executive Director. “We convinced ourselves that we could save around $375,000 a year.” While the primary driver was budgetary constraints, it also provided the ability to improve the pursuit of promising new technology both with the number of applications and their quality. While the numbers seemed to add up pretty well on paper, it was hardly a sure bet. “We were a little bit reluctant, and a little bit concerned as to whether it would actually work,” acknowledges Sherer. Fortunately, once implemented, the approach exceeded expectations, delivering savings closer to $500,000 per year. “It has just been a raging success,” says Sherer. “On top of the
Continue readingMay is National Cancer Research Month
Cancer has been part of the human condition since the beginning of recorded time. What are believed to be the first descriptions were found in an ancient Egyptian surgical medical textbook from 3000 BC. Today, cancer continues to be a national health menace. Even with the many advances in treatment and care, it remains the second most common cause of death with over 585,720 cancer deaths and 1,665,540 new cancer cases diagnosed in 2014. This month in our social media, the focus will be on cancer. So, why cancer you ask? Emory has a deep commitment to cancer research and patient care. One of the most prominent signs of the University’s commitment to cancer research and patient care is the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, the only National Cancer Institute (NCI) designated cancer center in Georgia. (Join us in one of our next blogs to find out more about Winship.) Also, while there are now more than 20 awareness days, weeks, or months around cancer, May just happens to be National Cancer Research Month (follow #NCRM15 this month on Twitter),[i] so we are taking this opportunity to help build awareness around the ways Emory is impacting cancer research. In
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