How to handle conflicts with inventorship on a patent with my supervisors from the university and the company?

Question

I am working on a research project funded by a company. So, I have two supervisors - one at the university and the other at the company.

The company likes the work I did and is encouraging me to disclose the invention at the university's technology transfer office. I made the mistake of filling up the technology transfer form with the names of both supervisors and sending it to them for comments. This is what one would usually do with publications.

However, I learnt only later that inventorship in a patent is completely different from authorship in a research article. I also understand that incorrectly naming an inventor on the form can invalidate the patent.

None of my supervisors made any intellectual contributions that led to the invention. I am also able to prove this as I have documents/slides about topics discussed during meetings.

How do I deal with this situation as both my supervisors expect their names to be on the patent? I must also mention that my university supervisor is extremely unprofessional. I have had problems with him in the past with publications. He could damage my career if I offend him. On the other hand I'd hate to share credit for something which I came up totally on my own when he was actually putting me under a great deal of pressure to work on one of his ideas that was not relevant to the problem at hand.

Answer 1

I suggest discussing the matter with the technology transfer office and asking them how to proceed.

They have expertise in patent applications, and should be able to advise you. If you can say "The technology transfer office says..." it may reduce pressure on you when talking to the supervisors.

At the best, the advisors know better than to expect to be on a patent without an intellectual contribution to the invention, and would have assumed you had only listed them to get their input on the application.