How Science-Born Inventions Failed in Court

A poster shown for about three days. A thesis on a library shelf. Two signatures on one invention. A verdict of more than $234 million, lost on one word.

In most of these ten US court cases nobody asked the court to doubt the science. What decided each outcome happened long before anyone reached the courtroom: who owned the work, what was shown and when, and what the patent's words covered.

Dr. Nadir Yildirim has worked on several sides of the table where research becomes products and companies. Reading the court records together, he finds one pattern. The gain is made at the start.

The answer is not to copy another university's model. It is a tailor-made system, built for one institution, its laws, its people and its mindset, and in place before the first poster goes up.

The ten cases

1. Three Days on a Poster Board Cost the Patent
2. One Shelved Thesis, 25 Claims Gone
3. Two Signatures, One Invention, No Standing
4. Seven Inventors Named, Four Removed
5. A Published Idea Is Not Collaboration
6. One Rat Sequence, Every Vertebrate Claimed
7. Claiming the Treatment, Holding the Assay
8. A Result Claimed, No Means Described
9. The Professor's Laser and the Narrow Research Defence
10. More Than $234 Million, Lost on One Word

What comes after the cases

Each chapter ends with one key solution. The book closes with 100 practical solutions, organised by chapter and indexed by role. It also carries a toolkit of checklists and a ninety-day plan, a table of cases, and a glossary of key terms.

Who it is for

Researchers who are about to show work in public. Technology transfer offices deciding what to file and when. University leaders who own the system rather than the case. Founders and investors reading diligence on university-born inventions.