The exploitation of LUMINATE results will serve as a key measure of success. Dr. Ioannis Kotsiopoulos, our Exploitation leader, organised the inaugural session in a series of workshops on Intellectual Property featuring guest speakers Mr. Mehdi Bounahmidi, European Patent Attorney, and Dr. Lars Lünenburger, Head of Physical Sciences, IP & Licenses at ETH Transfer.
For research projects such as LUMINATE, balancing scientific dissemination with intellectual property protection is critical to securing a competitive advantage. We are committed to sharing our findings with the scientific community, while safeguarding the commercial potential of our innovations. Both recognition and long-term sustainability of project outputs are essential.
A key takeaway from the workshop is the importance of early and careful planning of the exploitation journey in collaboration with IP professionals. Notably, patent protection provides the necessary time for research outputs to mature into viable, commercially attractive products. Therefore, focused exploitation efforts significantly increase the likelihood of an innovation reaching its full potential.
In the medical devices sector, we learned that openly sharing a product typically limits its funding to altruistic or crowd-sourced sources, which are often insufficient to overcome major hurdles such as regulatory challenges and the costs of large-scale deployment.
Finally, the workshop highlighted significant differences between European and U.S. patent law, particularly concerning grace periods for public disclosure and the treatment of surgical methods versus devices. The European Patent Office employs a structured problem-solution approach, whereas the U.S. system follows the more flexible Graham Factors.
