Critical Factors in Intellectual Property Creation, Protection, and Commercialization Management Process in Biotechnology

The patent system provides exclusive rights to inventors as an incentive for innovation and the progress of science. However, intellectual property laws can be complex and vary between different countries and regions, so it’s essential for inventors, universities, research institutes, and businesses to understand the laws applicable in their respective jurisdictions to properly protect their intellectual assets. Advances in biotechnology have raised complex questions regarding what can be patented and what cannot be patented as it involves the ethical, social, and legal implications of patenting inventions related to living organisms, genes, and genetic modifications. This work presents a process model to manage the intellectual property in universities and research institutes. This process model creates capabilities to make the Technology Transfer Offices from universities and research institutes more proactive and dynamic and make this office capable of assessing technologies that are forwarded to the office and define strategies for the protection and commercialize of the technologies. All sectors of the economy, and in particular the biorefineries sector, can benefit from the various technologies created (and protected by intellectual property) within universities, research institutes, and companies to transform their processes, which can generate greater gains productivity or improve the efficiency of company processes, or even product characteristics and, above all, to transform a creation into innovation and generate benefits to society.