Strengthen collaboration with PRV
From left: Marita Holst, Head of the Collaboration and Innovation Office, Peter Strömbäck, Director General PRV, Margareta Groth, Head of Department LTU, Erik Enqvist, Strategic Coordinator PRV, Martin Lidén, Senior Advisor PRV, Christin Wendel, Strategic Coordinator PRV, Anton Koval, Associate Senior Lecturer in Robotics and AI, Pär-Erik Martinsson, Operations Manager ProcessIT and Dariusz Kominiak, CEO Fieldrobotix.
Conscious strategies for how to manage intangible assets such as inventions, designs, brands, software and data are important. Partly to make use of academic results, partly for a good collaboration between academia and industry. The Patent and Registration Office (PRV) can help increase the university's knowledge in the field. That was one of the results from PRV's high-level visit to Luleå University of Technology.
PRV supports entrepreneurs and innovators to manage and protect their intangible assets. As much as 80 percent of a company's value often resides in intangible assets, that is assets that cannot be touched. Companies that develop and nurture their intangible assets have higher profitability than those that don´t.
– It´s important to map your company's intangible assets and make a strategy for how to manage them. Then you give your company the best conditions to develop, says PRV's Director General Peter Strömbäck, who together with some employees paid a visit to Luleå University of Technology.
There PRV informed that they offer universities and colleges lectures on strategic management of intangible assets. The content can be adapted to different target groups such as students, PhD students, researchers, librarians and innovation advisors.
Intellectual property rights create development
PRV is also a support when registering intellectual property rights such as patents, design protection and trademark protection.
– When different actors have collaborated during an innovation project, it´s important to find out who owns the right to what. For example, when academia and industry collaborate in various research projects. Clear agreements on how intangible assets may be used by the parties during and after the project are a key to successful cooperation, says Christin Wendel, strategic coordinator at PRV.
An intellectual property right is an exclusive right that gives the holder the right to prevent others from commercially using the intangible asset, but also to decide who may use the asset and how. With the exclusive right, it always follows that information about the asset becomes public and available to everyone.
– With the help of the databases, we can spread knowledge and inspire further development. The researcher can, for example, find collaboration partners, find out which technical solutions are published in the research area and whether there is a risk of infringing on someone else's exclusive rights, says Christin Wendel.
Fruitful exchange and dialogue
During the day, PRV received information from the university's Collaboration and Innovation Office, the center of excellence ProcessIT Innovations and from LTU Business and Arctic Business. Important parts of the university's innovation ecosystem where the business world that wants to collaborate with the university and students and researchers who want help to commercialize their ideas can get help.
PRV also had a conversation with the university's lawyers where they raised various issues in the area, such as the teacher exemption. It gives researchers and teachers at Swedish higher education institutions the right to the research results that they produce in the service. In connection with a visit to the university's laboratory for space technology and AI, the researchers talked about their work and gave examples of research results that have been developed into companies.
– It was a very interesting and rewarding day. We look forward to strengthened cooperation with PRV, says Margareta Groth, Head of Department at Luleå University of Technology and host of the visit.
