Act on inventions

The law concerning inventions at public research institutions (L347) of June 1999 focuses on the increasing co-operation between research institutions and businesses to make new knowledge and competence available to Danish society.

The law permits research institutions to take over rights to inventions made by their employees, and obliges the institutions to try to commercialise the inventions they have taken over.

Cultural differences

The potentially conflicting interests of the research institutions and businesses in areas such as publishing and utilisation of research results often makes it difficult in actual practice, however, to enter into optimal agreements on collaboration.
 
To attain the goals of the law mentioned above, it is therefore very important that both public research institutions and businesses understand and respect the various conditions relating to the activities of the other party.