IP Evaluate will give students the chance to conduct their own patent searches and learn more on what it takes to generate a successful spinout.
Imperial Innovations, the tech transfer office (TTO) of Imperial College London, yesterday launched a pilot scheme to expand the tech transfer skills of university students.
IP Evaluate will invite students to conduct preliminary patent searches for prior art – evidence that elements of potential intellectual property (IP) may have already been conceived of elsewhere.
The paid interns are set to gain expertise that could further either an academic or entrepreneurial career. Members of the public may eventually join the one-year pilot, which will initially use projects from Imperial College’s Faculty of Engineering.
The initiative was introduced alongside another one-year pilot, the Imperial Coders’ Network program, which will send Imperial-based programmers to work for commercial and academic projects under a partnership between the TTO and Imperial Consultants, the university’s external consultancy arm.
The schemes complement an 18-month pilot started in August 2017 – Founders Choice – which allows Imperial founders to retain 95% spinout equity as opposed to the approximate half-and-half split usually favoured with the TTO.
Imperial has also started a free spinout training scheme dubbed Innovation Academy, offering instruction on useful topics such as exiting and law.
Jeremy Holmes, head of IP at Imperial Innovations, said: “IP Evaluate and the Coders’ Network are – alongside Founders Choice and Innovation Academy – part of a wider set of initiatives that allow us to test novel approaches to tech transfer and better engage with Imperial’s growing innovation and entrepreneurship scene.”
