A Patent Assignment Request should be submitted when you are seeking agency permission to assign your rights to an individual patent to either an inventor or another third party. If you are wishing to retain your ownership of the patent, but simply have another joint owner (who also has federal funding), take the lead in iEdison reporting, then you should submit a Patent Transfer Request.
Be sure to communicate and coordinate with the inventor/third party to whom you wish to assign the patent as they will be required to register in iEdison (if they do not already have an account) and accept receipt of the patent in iEdison prior to agency review of the Patent Assignment Request.
Please resolve all notifications possible under the Patent Report prior to submitting the Patent Assignment Request.
NOTE: Supporting Documentation is required in order to submit this request. The type of Supporting Documentation is determined by the Federal Funding Agency. Contact your funding agency if you do not have a copy of the form/documentation they require in order to process a Patent Assignment Request.
To submit a Patent Assignment Request, complete the following steps:
Under the Requests section of the Patent Report, click the "Add Request" button.
After clicking the "Add Request" button, a popup window will open requiring you to select the request type and enter additional information (depending on the request).
Select "Assignment" from the pulldown menu. A field will appear requiring you to choose to assign the patent to either Inventor(s) or Third Party.
If you select Inventor(s), two additional fields will appear requiring you to enter the Inventor Name and Inventor's Organization Code. The information will auto-populate as you type in these fields. You may enter the name of the Organization if you do not know the Organization Code.
If you select Third Party, two additional fields will appear asking for a Third Party Name and Third Party's Organization Code. Only the Organization code is required. The information will auto-populate as you type.
Whether you're assigning to an Inventor or an Organization, you must upload the Support Document required by your funding agency. Click the "Support Document" button to locate the file on your local computer. You may also drag and drop a file into this popup window.
In the "Request Reasons/Comments" field, you're required to briefly explain the reason for the Assignment Request.
Click "Save"
Click the "Save" button on the popup window.
The recipient Organization will then receive a notification to accept the assignment (for information on how a recipient Organization accepts/rejects an assignment see Receiving a Patent Assignment, Patent Transfer, or Patent Void Request. If they accept the assignment, a notification will be sent to the Primary Funding Agency notifying them of the Patent Assignment Request. If the recipient Organization rejects the assignment, the Patent Assignment Request will not be sent to the Funding Agency for review.
While the Funding Agency's decision is pending, you may click the "Edit" button to make changes, or if you feel the request was made in error, you may click the "Withdraw" button. If you wish to check on the status of the request, you may click the "Agency Decision" button to view an update.
If approved, you will receive a notification indicating the approval, and the Patent Report will be assigned to the recipient Organization. You will no longer have access to the active Patent Report, however, the assigned Patent Report will be searchable/viewable as a transferred/assigned record.
If for some reason the request is rejected, you will receive a notification indicating the rejection. The Decision and the Rejection Reasons will be displayed next to the Request in the Patent Report.