Careful maintenance of laboratory notebooks is becoming a lost art, according to tech transfer and legal experts, who warn there is an “epidemic” of poor record-keeping that could lead to lost patent rights and grant dollars. Kenneth D. Sibley, attorney with Raleigh, NC-based Myers Bigel Sibley & Sajovec, says sloppy or incomplete notebooks can result in forfeiture of IP rights, confusion over inventorship, and bad will between collaborators. He advises TTOs and their researchers to ensure notebooks are neat and well-organized, including records, computer printouts, and other back-up data. It’s also important to make sure the notebooks are periodically signed and dated, as well as regularly witnessed by a knowledgeable colleague who is not a co-inventor. Regular witnessing must be done to satisfy the corroboration requirements in patent law, he says. Sibley also urges universities to assist researchers by providing standardized books as well as guidelines on how to record their work properly. Wake Forest University Health Sciences (WFUHS) is practicing what Sibley is preaching. The school recently began a series of hour-long classes offered to each department that include guidance on proper record-keeping, as well as a seven-week course that meets for two hours a week to discuss a range of commercialization topics, including the importance of accurate, signed, and witnessed lab notebooks. Explaining the impetus behind the education efforts, Joshua Z. Schwartz, MD, MBA, WFUHS assistant director of technology asset management, noted that “people in our office started to ask as we got inventions whether the inventor had accurate notebooks to corroborate their research, and often the answer would be no. Or, if they said ‘yes’ and we asked them if it was witnessed and signed, they would say no to that.” In addition to its faculty classes, the TTO designed and then purchased customized leather-bound notebooks for class attendees, including an instruction page on keeping a good notebook. The complete article appears in the February issue of Technology Transfer Tactics. Click here to subscribe and get access to all current and back issues.

Write a comment