Setting Basic Principles and Provisions

	Raising awareness of the importance of IPR

The management and the protection of knowledge is a key issue of Nano2Life. The critical potential of knowledge misuse becomes explicit if one considers that adequate protection of inventions is of dominant importance for the development of new applications, the creation of new high-tech start-ups and the overall advancement of nanobiotech.

 

Europe, in order to occupy and maintain a large part of the embryonic nanobiotech business and market, needs to obtain basic patents in key technologies. Within Nano2Life the programs Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and Knowledge Management (KM) aim to set basic principles and provisions. This is necessary for an efficient co-operation and an appropriate use and dissemination of the results produced. The larger the consortium becomes, the more important it will be to achieve an efficient knowledge flow.

Rules According with Needs

The network communicates ideas, rules and concerns, ensuring that its directions and provisions are in accordance with societal scientific and industrial needs. With respect to IPR and KM its tasks include:

• Providing information, model documents and expert advice,
• Facilitating the access to experts and thus increase the patent portfolio of the network,
• Informing the researchers of the network about the existing provisions and procedures for the protection of knowledge,
• Raising awareness of the importance of IPR,
• Monitoring important inventions and technological developments in the field and relaying this information to all members.

The internal management of knowledge, the use and exploitation of the integration achieved by Nano2Life may be translated into joint research projects. These can be submitted by selected partners to other research funding instruments. This exploitation does not exclude direct transfer of knowledge once protected, to external partners like companies or venture capitalists.

Partner organisations:

• Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas, Heraklion, GR
• Atomic Energy Commission, Grenoble, F
• University of Muenster, Muenster, DE
• NanoBioNet e.V., Saarbrücken, DE
• Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Sulzbach, DE