ip4inno

Training the trainers

Every day business advisors, TTOs and other intermediaries come into contact with innovative people who want to commercialise their new ideas. To equip them with the necessary knowledge about IP and related commercialisation issues, the European Commission, the EPO and 18 other institutions have come together to develop a range of IP strategy teaching materials to be used in a "train the trainers" philosophy.

The materials

21 modules (a total of over 50 teaching hours) were created comprising

• PowerPoint slides,
• teaching notes,
• case studies and
• workshop exercises,

to cover topics such as IP licensing, IP valuation and financing, open innovation, IP enforcement and patent information.

All of the training material has been written by experts from national patent offices, commercial law firms, business advice centres, innovation support agencies and universities.

Many of the project materials are openly available. The teaching modules, however, are on a part of the website accessible only to registered users. Registration is free, and users are encouraged to adapt, customise or translate the modules, on condition that they respect a few rules:

• any trainings they offer using the material must be operated "not-for-profit"
• copies of any adaptations or translations of the material should be supplied back to the EPO for uploading to the project website
• the material remain on the ip4inno branded PowerPoint template at all times.

Registration

Registration for access to the modules comes automatically to participants at ip4inno workshops run regularly by the EPO or other partners. Business advisors wishing to use the modules but who are unable to attend a training can make a request to the European Patent Academy by e-mail.

Open-access modules

Open the ip4inno website