Develop Your Ideas

Wake Forest Innovations helps you develop your ideas for novel therapeutics, vaccines, medical devices and diagnostics products. We provide expertise in technology development and commercialization from our collective experience in both academic research and industry. We put all that knowledge to work for you, guiding you through path to innovation.

Idea. Invention. Innovation.

Our focus is on innovation. Here, “innovation” is far more than a buzzword; it’s what drives how we work with our faculty and staff.

We transform ideas from inventors at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist into market-changing innovations through our “i3” approach.

Our i3 approach—which stands for “Idea. Invention. Innovation.”—reflects our goal to advance your technology idea through industry standard milestones to a point where industry partners license and move them to the market, so they can significantly improve patient care and outcomes.

Idea – Every successful health care technology has to begin somewhere. At Wake Forest Innovations, it begins with an idea from you — our world-class faculty and staff.

Invention – The idea is only the beginning. Ideas must be evaluated, developed and then protected. That’s when they become an invention. But a patented invention is not the end of the journey. Wake Forest Innovations goes much further by investing time, resources and money into developing technologies in a way that will maximize their effect in the marketplace.

Innovation – An innovation is an invention that not only reaches the market, but transforms it. Our team works directly with you to develop ideas for health care technologies into market-changing innovations. That is our mission.

Path to Innovation

Developing an idea into an invention and getting it into the marketplace has its ups and downs, obstacles and solutions, successes and failures. We call this journey the Path to Innovation.

How does Wake Forest Innovations help you move along this path? We break the journey into five steps and give you the support and expertise you need to move from one stage to the next.

There are five steps in the Path to Innovation—Ideate, Evaluate, Protect, Develop and License. Each of these steps has its own unique challenges and goals. By providing you with a support team experienced in both business development and scientific research, we can help blaze the trail and supply the tools necessary to accomplish the journey.

Ideate

Identify the Problem and Your Solution
During the ideate step, your innovation team from will help you work through your idea’s problem and solution. What is the unmet medical need that it addresses and how is your solution better than what is currently available?

Evaluate

Assess the Value of Your Idea
The ideate step is followed by a stringent evaluation process, which will help you assess the market potential of your idea. What companies might be interested in such a technology, what does the market landscape look like and what will it take to develop your idea to the point where a company will license it?

Protect

Create a Strategy to Protect and Develop Your Idea
During the protect step, your team will help you create a strategy to protect your intellectual property surrounding the invention, as well as a plan for how to best develop your technology. These strategies are customized to suit your technology, creating your own unique path to licensing.

Develop

Turn Your Idea into a Valuable Technology
As your idea begins to take shape, your innovation team will help you find the resources and expertise you need to develop your idea into a technology that piques the interest of potential industry partners.

License

Commercialize Your Technology
During the last part of this journey, we will help you license your now-developed technology, finding the industry partner who will be the best fit. That partnership with a pharmaceutical, medical device or diagnostics company, etc. will take your technology the rest of the way to market, where it can have the impact on health care that you’ve been envisioning.

Working With Us

Benefits of Developing Your Technology with Wake Forest Innovations.

Development Resources

Working with us gives you access to development resources of Wake Forest Innovations, which includes design and prototyping services, market landscape research and strategic planning for the protection, development and licensing of technologies.

Funding

Through resources like Commercial Pathway Awards, we help inventors apply for funding that moves their technologies forward.

i3 Workshop

You know the science of your technology, but what’s the business case for it? We will walk you, the inventor, through a workshop that helps you think about your idea from a business perspective. The outcome? We help establish your idea’s value proposition and formulate a technology development path and business plan to achieve that value.

Patent Protection

We protect your ideas by helping you navigate the world of the patent, copyright and trademark process and providing the expertise of patent experts and attorneys.

Meet the Team

Our team understands the journey of technology development and pushes beyond ideas and inventions to produce innovations that improve health.

Disclose Your Invention

The first step to intellectual property protection is disclosing your invention. Submit an invention disclosure form to begin the process of protecting your intellectual property.

Funding Your Idea

Great ideas need fuel to become realized. That’s where funding comes in.

Wake Forest Innovations works directly with you, the inventor, to obtain internal and external sources of funding to help advance projects through development and commercialization milestones, such as market research, advanced prototyping, safety testing and preclinical or clinical proof-of-concept testing.

Internal Funding

External Funding

Protect

Wake Forest Innovations provides expertise to help you create a customize strategy to protect your intellectual property.

What is the Purpose of Intellectual Property?

Intellectual property rights are a vehicle for developing ideas into usable and licensable products that move into the marketplace. There are five basic intellectual property pathways to consider based on the type of product your idea would become: copyright, trademark, trade secret, right of publicity and the patent.

In academic medicine, patents are one of the most common forms of intellectual property protection because they can cover most health care innovations, including medical devices, systems, therapeutics and other compositions of matter and processes.

Is Intellectual Property Protection Right for You?

If you believe that your idea has potential to become useful product, Wake Forest Innovations is your resource for initiating the protection process. Here are three questions we can help you work through when deciding to pursue intellectual property protection:

Is anyone else working in this field? When considering intellectual property protection, the first step is to take a close look at the work already being done in your field. A common reason intellectual property rights are rejected by the United State Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) during the application process is that they are too similar to intellectual property already in existence—we can help you see what other work is being done in the same area. Having Wake Forest Innovations protect your work early combats the risk that someone else claims ownership before you and limits the ability to market products resulting from your idea or research. Our experts can help you determine if your research or idea has potential to be protected.
Is licensing your invention appropriate? If the goal is to commercialize your work and partner with industry to develop a product or process, establishing intellectual property protection can add value in the eyes of potential partners. The benefit of intellectual property — usually via patents, but also potentially copyright and trademarks — is the guarantee of market exclusivity, which is a major incentive for companies interested in licensing novel technologies and approaches.
Do you plan to publish your research? Though publication is essential for faculty researchers, putting information about your idea or invention out into the public domain before first seeking protection can restrict the rights available to protect your intellectual property. Contact Wake Forest Innovations regarding protecting your ideas early before you publish in a journal, present at a conference or even apply for grant funding.

How Does Protection Work?

Protection is a key benchmark on what we call the Path to Innovation—a five step journey to developing novel health care technologies. Our goal is not to churn out patents that sit on a shelf, but to use intellectual property protection as a vehicle that increases the potential commercial value of the invention being developed.

Wake Forest Innovations handles the patenting process, but here is more information to help you understand the journey:

Full Disclosure

The first step in the patent process is filling out our Invention Disclosure form, which provides thorough detail about your idea or product: research, data, designs, etc. Having all the information available about what is being protected helps ensure that the protection is complete.

Patent Attorneys

Wake Forest Innovations will initiate a relationship with the right patent attorney for your idea. It’s important to identify a patent attorney who is experienced in the field that your idea is in, and we work with a variety of experienced attorneys.

Draft Application

After initiating a relationship, the patent attorney will take all the disclosed information that you provide and prepare a draft application. After it’s complete, you will review the application and make sure it’s accurate and complete.

Provisional Patent Filing

The initial filing will be for a provisional patent, in most cases. That document, which is submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, provides time for you to develop and research your idea for a full year until a non-provisional patent can be filed. The non-provisional patent provides protection for your product.

Patent Prosecution

When the decision to file a non-provisional patent is made, we will help you negotiate any exchanges with the examiner who decides if the health care technology deserves a full patent.

Full Patent Awarded

At the end of patent prosecution, a full patent will be awarded. The time it takes for a patent to be issued often depends on the patent’s scope and the area of research.

Forms and Policies

Our forms and policies help to streamline the process of technology development and commercialization and safeguard your intellectual property. Whether you would like to brainstorm an idea, disclose an invention you are already developing or reference institutional policies, we want to connect with you.

Our team is ready to help answer your questions and navigate the various forms and policies below.

Policies

Review the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center policy regarding intellectual property and the development of inventions and patents. Some technologies are protected by copyright rules rather than traditional patent rules. Protect your rights by reviewing the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center copyright policy.

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center Intellectual Property Policy

Wake Forest University (Reynolda Campus) Intellectual Property Policy

Wake Forest Baptist Hospital Copyright Policy

Submit Your Idea

If you are faculty or staff of Wake Forest Baptist or Wake Forest University and have an idea for a novel therapeutic, diagnostic or medical device, we want to hear from you.

Submit Your Idea

Technology Transfer and Commercialization

Research Focus Areas

Translation to Care

More Resources

Develop Your Ideas

Idea. Invention. Innovation.

Path to Innovation

Working With Us

Development Resources

Funding

i3 Workshop

Patent Protection

Meet the Team

Disclose Your Invention

Funding Your Idea

Internal Funding

External Funding

Protect

What is the Purpose of Intellectual Property?

Is Intellectual Property Protection Right for You?

How Does Protection Work?

Full Disclosure

Patent Attorneys

Draft Application

Provisional Patent Filing

Patent Prosecution

Full Patent Awarded

Forms and Policies

Policies

Submit Your Idea