Report an Invention
Invention Disclosure Process
- Complete all pages of the appropriate invention disclosure form found below:
• Invention Disclosure Form
• Software Disclosure Form
• Additional Inventors Form for an Invention
• Additional Inventors Form for Software - Make sure to provide accurate and complete funding information.
- Include a summary of the invention and any supporting material you may have prepared, such as a manuscript or conference presentation describing the invention.
- Submit PDF versions of the completed Invention/Software Disclosure Form, the disclosure document, and an editable version of the disclosure document to:
Office of Technology Transfer and Corporate Partnerships California Institute of Technology
1200 East California Blvd., M/C 6-32
Pasadena, CA 91125
Phone: (626) 395-8553
Fax: (626) 356-2486
Email: [email protected]
Why is it important to report my inventions?
Reporting an invention to OTTCP can be the first step in obtaining a patent, which will help protect your ideas and inventions. Also, Caltech has obligations to federal and other sponsors with respect to inventions arising from their funding.
Protecting your invention starts with filing an invention disclosure form with OTTCP, making sure to include a thorough description of the invention. Providing complete information on this form allows us to manage your invention. It is essential that we know whether your technology was developed under federal or other sponsorship. Federal law requires that Caltech notify funding agencies of inventions made under federally supported research. Caltech may have reporting or other obligations to non-federal sponsors as well.
For most inventions disclosed to OTTCP, we will file a provisional patent application with the information that you provide. We require a complete written description that would enable one of skill in the art to practice the inventions in order to meet all the requirements for a provisional patent application (35 U.S.C. section 112).
Software developed during your research should also be disclosed to our office. We generally do not file provisional patent applications to cover software. However, our office is responsible for granting software licenses to outside entities, which is facilitated by having a software disclosure on file in OTTCP. For other software questions (including questions about open source releases), please contact Jennifer Shockro.