What We Do With Your Idea

Evaluating Your Idea

An important first step in our invention assistance process is objectively determining whether an idea is worth pursuing. Memorial Innovatory has an expert team that can evaluate your idea or invention. We can assess the idea’s potential and provide practical feedback during the early stages of development.

This process often involves research to determine:

• Commercial viability
• Market demand
• Potential of the idea to improve patient care
• Value of the product or service to healthcare or healthcare administration
• If the idea is truly novel (Is there already a similar product on the market or in development?)

Our evaluation may protect you from investing too much time or money in something that may not be worth pursuing. An idea may not be worth pursuing for a variety of reasons, such as: 

• A similar product or service already exists.
• The product has significant design flaws.
• There’s a lack of demand for or prohibitive costs associated with the product or service.

Protecting Your Idea

If the idea is viable and you partner with our team, the next step is protecting your idea. We start by applying for a patent or attaining copyright protection.

According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a patent gives you the right to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or "selling” an invention or “importing” it into the United States. Similarly, a copyright protects works of authorship from being copied or used without permission. Memorial Innovatory has a library of patents and copyrights, and we have extensive experience preparing successful applications.

Applying for a patent or copyright can take years and cost a lot of money. As your partner, we:

• Contract with attorneys who have expertise in intellectual property and cover the costs of attorneys and application fees 
• Proactively develop your idea and prepare the paperwork 
• Answer queries from the USPTO and see the application through to approval or denial 
• Consider the rights and legal implications of any third parties, such as people who have co-developed an idea

Developing Your Idea

Memorial Innovatory helps our partners refine and develop their ideas throughout the invention development journey. For example, we can help you:

• Develop a timeline for introduction to the market
• Identify and engage expert advisors to brainstorm ideas for product enhancement
• Generate data or a use case to support the idea
• Design the product
• Manufacture a prototype and find a manufacturer
• Identify your target market
• Market your idea at conferences or with corporations in the industry
• Develop a business plan or commercialization plan

Finding Strategic Partners for Your Idea

Memorial Innovatory works closely with many other organizations. We can leverage these relationships and introduce you to potential strategic partners and investors. These partners can help you further develop your idea, test it in the market or create a spinoff company.

Organization types we work with include:

• Academia/universities
• Associations and conferences for healthcare providers and administrators
• Corporations in industry
• Nongovernmental organizations
• Other hospital systems
• Venture capitalists 

The Innovatory supports its inventors along the journey by: 

• Networking on your behalf and sending your idea to potential partners
• Helping you prepare for interviews, meetings and presentations
• Negotiating terms on behalf of you and Memorial Healthcare System

For example, licensing agreements often involve a valuation and a buyout or royalties. We’ll help you negotiate the terms, amount and timing of these payments. When developing other types of partnerships, we negotiate timelines, each party’s responsibilities and more.

Ownership

Intellectual property is any intellectual creation such as: 

• Computer code
• Data
• Documented ideas
• Drawings and diagrams
• Inventions
• Writings in research notebooks

Intellectual property rights protect your intellectual property and ability to achieve commercial benefits from your intellectual efforts. Establishing your intellectual property early in the process can help prevent others from taking your idea.

Memorial Healthcare System technically owns the healthcare intellectual property of its employees when it’s discovered, created or developed. If you develop intellectual property during your employment at Memorial that’s related to your job responsibilities, the healthcare system holds the rights to that intellectual property. The Innovatory will work with you to ensure that your interests and Memorial’s interests are protected.

If a third party gets involved, such as a medical device company, they may seek partial or complete rights in the intellectual property. If a company or strategic partner licenses your invention, then you as the inventor would share in royalties generated from the sale of that invention. We work with you to find these types of partners and negotiate with them to enable your invention to be commercialized.

Learn more about the ways we partner with industry.