Technology transfer and innovation office (TTIO)

How can the TTIO support you?

The mission of the Technology Transfer and Innovation Office (TTIO) of the IMDEA Materials Institute is to promote the transfer of our technology and intellectual property for society’s use and benefit while generating income to support further our research lines.

This transfer of knowledge and technology can happen formally through different instruments, such as direct research and developments contracts with industrial partners, the license of patents or software applications to third parties or by the constitution of a spin-off company that will address the technology industrialization itself.

The main tasks of the TTIO are:

  • Support IMDEA Materials’ researchers through the process of protecting their intellectual property, normally through patents and software registers.
  • Support the participation of IMDEA Materials’ researchers in external innovation programmes aimed at industrializing technology.
  • Support the matureness of IMDEA Material’s IP through the establishment of Proof of concept tailored programmes.
  • Market these technologies to industry with the hope of finding one or more companies interested in developing products based on the technology.
  • Negotiate license agreements with the interested companies.
  • Liaise with potential industrial collaborators in order to establish sponsored research agreements with a significant intellectual property component.

Licenses to third parties require the licensee to meet certain requirements and to pay royalties to IMDEA Materials’, which are then shared with the technology inventors accordingly to our IP policy.

Tell the TTIO about your invention

Complete and submit the preliminary Invention Disclosure form that you will find through the button below and we will guide you through the steps to be covered to correctly protect your IP.

The first step will be to fill in the Full Invention Disclosure form, a confidential document that should fully describe the new aspects of your invention and its advantages over current technologies. One of the most important things to take into account when filling the FID form is the fact that all contributors to the ideas leading to a discovery should be mentioned on it, an appropriate invention percentage, allocated to each of them

Note that in order to pursue protection and commercialization of IP rights, it is of outmost importance that you disclose your invention to the TTIO before publicly describing it in a paper, presentation, lecture, poster, abstract, website description, research proposal, or other public presentation of the technology.