Protection of intellectual property in iPad notes

Access rights verification

iPad is a secure system which allows access to information only with proper permissions. The permissions can be set by specifying individual users or user groups who have access (read or write) to documents, folders, or accounts of interest. The user identity is verified by login information (user name and password).

Proof of date and authorship of invention

There are several possible strategies to secure the proof of date and authorship of invention necessary for patent protection. The choice depends on your preference for the balance between investment and risk. From our experience, the three strategies below are currently the most viable:

Electronic Signature

iPad can work with an external electronic signature software. This strategy requires no printing and a minor financial investment to buy the software. The software consists of two components: a Signature Creator (inexpensive) and a Signer (free). A research lab should only need one Signature Creator license. However, electronically signed documents have not yet been as strongly supported in real-life court cases as their paper-based equivalents (although, electronic signatures are gaining progressively more support in the courts).

Tag-based system

In collaboration with Institut Pasteur patent office, we worked out a unique strategy that takes advantage of iPad’s semantic tagging capabilities:

Researchers use iPad’s "intellectual property" tag to label sensitive information in their notes and reports (new ideas and methodologies, final results, important milestones). Every month, they print out everything that was labeled with this tag and paste it into their paper notebook (since only the most important things are printed out, there usually is not much paper to manage each month). The notebooks are signed and countersigned as usual.

Once researchers are ready to hand in their notebook to the patent office, they export all the relevant data from iPad, burn it on read-only CDs or DVDs, and attach them to the paper notebook (just as it currently happens with other digital data).

Printing

This strategy involves printing all of the sensitive information on special paper. This paper allows to avoid having to attach the printed sheets into a bound notebook. This strategy requires an additional printing expense.