Regarding the inventive activity of the scientists associated with the University of Silesia, 2020 was remarkably fruitful. During this period, a record number of applications for legal protection for an invention in patent offices was submitted, what is more, it is the largest number of rights granted in the history of the University. According to the Polish Patent Office (PPO), for many years, the Silesian Alma mater has been one of the leading classical universities regarding the protection of intellectual property.
In 2020, as many as 58 applications for the protection of various industrial property in Poland and abroad were filed. Scientists associated with UŚ are authors or co-authors of 55 inventions submitted to the PPO and one invention undergoing the international patent procedure (PCT) which is supervised by the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO). Additionally, two industrial designs were submitted under the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) procedure.
In 2020, the University of Silesia was granted 41 exclusive rights to various objects of industrial property, incl. 33 patents for inventions and one protection right for utility model granted by the PPO. What is more, the University obtained two rights for the registration of industrial designs granted by EUIPO and one protection right for a trademark granted by the PPO. It is worth to underline that we obtained one European patent, which we later validated in three countries: the UK, Germany and France.
As emphasized by Mariusz Grzesiczak, the coordinator of the Office of Patent Attorneys, the activities carried out by the office are primarily intended to contribute to increasing the broadly understood innovation of the University of Silesia and securing the protection of innovative results of intellectual work created at the University of Silesia. In 2020, further actions were taken to support the commercialisation of selected objects of intellectual property in the possession of the university, mainly inventions and utility models.
