New Technology Disclosures – What, When and How?

An NTD may be submitted by any employee of the University at Buffalo, SUNY, which includes student employees. TTO works with inventors to commercialize this intellectual property, benefitting their individual research labs and the university. 

The standard for when to submit an NTD is “reduction to practice.” Concepts which do not have experimental data may not be ready for NTD submissions. Please note, though, that a technology does not need to be fully developed for an NTD to be submitted. Reaching out to the TTO is the most effective way to discuss the current stage of a technology and determine when to submit an NTD to offer protection for an invention.

The NTD content is used by the Technology Transfer office to determine if the innovation is unique and supported by the data provided. Preliminary data supporting the concept can be sufficient for an initial assessment to be made, and a commercialization manager within the TTO will communicate with the inventor to investigate further details.

A public disclosure entails the presentation of the innovation to anyone outside the research group from which the technology originated. Examples of public disclosure include published papers, posters, and conference talks, but also research updates at faculty meetings, hallway conversations and informal discussions outside the lab.

TTO recommends NTD submission a minimum of 6-8 weeks before a public disclosure to allow a thorough evaluation to be executed. However, a shorter review period is preferable to no disclosure. If a technology is not assessed and is disclosed publicly, international patent rights are lost.

• A non-confidential title.
• Names and contact information for co-inventors, along with their percentage contribution to the invention. You will automatically be added as an inventor with 100% contribution. Reduce the contribution percentage as appropriate to add additional inventors.
• A detailed description of the technology. Focus on what you believe are the inventive or distinctive elements.
• Practical and commercial applications of the invention. What are the envisioned products or services? What are the competitive products/services and what are the advantages or disadvantages of your technology?
• The invention’s stage of development. For example, have you developed a prototype or sample material?
• Has the invention already been publicly disclosed (e.g. journal, conference presentation, poster, web site) and if so, details of that disclosure. Public disclosure before patent application filing may jeopardize patent rights.
• Details for any planned future public disclosure.
• All funding sources for the disclosure including agencies/entities and grant numbers. Tech Transfer must review reporting requirements, especially for federal sponsors. Inventions with federal funding are required to be reported within 60 days from disclosure to the TTO.
• Any relevant documents supporting this invention. Manuscripts, PowerPoint presentations, diagrams and figures may be uploaded to the Inventor Portal with your disclosure.

As the NTD is the basis for intellectual property assessment, failure data can be as useful as successful data. This is because one of the criteria for patentability is non-obviousness. Failure data, which is data that did not support the hypothesis being tested, can be used to support arguments that the discovery is not one that would be easily anticipated.

An NTD is submitted through the UB Inventor Portal and is sent directly to the TTO. Administrators handle communications with inventors to finalize details and coordinate reporting requirements with funding agencies, while Commercialization Managers (CM) perform the technology assessments. Once the administrative details are finalized, the CM will set up an initial interview with the submitter to discuss the specific details of the invention and conduct a full analysis for patentability and marketability. This includes prior art searches, literature reviews, evaluations of market trends and leading competitors, economic assessments, and data analyses. The more information provided in the NTD, the more effective the assessment can be and the faster a determination can be made on the value of potential intellectual property and commercialization opportunities.

Within the TTO, NTD assessments are assigned by subject matter of the disclosure. In general, assignments are divided as follows: