Filing a disclosure
Any faculty member, staff member or student who believes their work has produced something patentable files a short disclosure with the Office of Research & Sponsored Programs before publishing or publicly demonstrating it.
What Porter does with it
The office coordinates a patent search, evaluates commercial potential and can support licensing to an outside company; inventors share in licensing revenue under the university's IP policy, which varies depending on how the work was funded.
In and around Porter Falls
Research at Porter is applied and partner-driven: a Valley Health quality project, a DNR study on the Porter River, a manufacturing-process fix for a county employer. The Office of Research & Sponsored Programs handles the review and paperwork so the work can start on time.
The practical details
First step: File an invention disclosure with the Research office. Ownership: Governed by the employee/student IP policy, varies by funding source. Support: Patent search and licensing support at no cost to the inventor. Anything time-sensitive — an accommodation, a booking, a deadline — is worth confirming directly before you rely on it, because the specifics here can change from term to term.
If you have a question
The office behind this is Office of Research & Sponsored Programs (Millwright Hall, Room 340). Call (715) 555–0230 or email research@uwporterfalls.edu during the fall and spring terms, or sign in to MyPorter to send a message or book a time. If it turns out another office owns the question, they will route it rather than send you back to the start.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every office, person, building, phone number and statistic on this page is invented; nothing here describes a real institution or a service you can actually contact.