What is Invent With Nokia? FAQs

Invent With Nokia is Nokia’s Intellectual Property open innovation platform that’s designed to facilitate invention submissions sourced from outside the company. Even though Nokia has thousands of talented people and invests billions of dollars each year in R&D, Nokia is eager to work with external companies and individuals who can bring diverse technology and new ideas to Nokia’s business. Nokia’s successful track record of strategic alliances has built a strong collaborative spirit within Nokia.

· What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual Property refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; symbols, names as well as images used in commerce. IP is protected in law by, for example, patents, copyright and trademarks, which enable people to earn recognition or financial benefit from what they invent or create. By striking the right balance between the interests of innovators and the wider public interest, the IP system aims to foster an environment in which creativity and innovation can flourish. Source: http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/

· What Invent with Nokia is not for?

a) This portal is not intended for customer suggestions on how Nokia can improve its products, battery life etc.

b) This portal is not intended for feedback on current products.

c) This portal is not intended to solicit potential employees, looking for a potential job opportunity with Nokia. Please visit http://www.nokia.com/en_int/about-us/careers.

d) This portal is not intended for business proposals, dealerships, nor marketing offers.

· What Invent With Nokia looks for?

Invent With Nokia invites external inventors with their innovative ideas to contribute to Nokia’s growth and diversifying its patent portfolio. The purpose of Invent With Nokia is to gain access to inventions that may be of use to Nokia in its quest to develop new mobility-enabling technologies and solutions for its consumers. These inventions may or may not be covered by a patent application, a granted patent or a registered design. Nokia is seeking to enhance its portfolio of inventions and ultimately patents that may be of use to Nokia in its quest to develop new mobility-enabling technologies and solutions for its customers. As a guide, we are looking for inventions in the following areas:

• Cellular standards (5G radio, LTE radio, WiFi, Core Network)
• Wireless Technologies (non standards)
• IP and Optical
• Fixed Networks
• Application & Analytics (security, IoT, etc)
• Digital Health
• Digital Media
• User Interfaces

You can learn more here:

http://inventwithnokia.nokia.com/what-are-we-looking-for

· How does Invent With Nokia work?

After registering on the Invent With Nokia website, inventors proceed to submit his/her ideas on Invent With Nokia. Submissions are evaluated on multiple levels. If the idea is judged as valuable and is aligned to Nokia’s business goals, the idea may be selected for patenting. Once a submission is selected for patenting, the inventor is eligible for invention rewards and is paid as per the award option selected by him/her.

You can learn about both our Registration and Submission processes here:

https://inventwithnokia.nokia.com/our-submission-process

· Can I invent together with a Nokia employee?

Yes you can. You may co-invent with a Nokia employee where the % share of your contribution is indicated in your online submission form. You also need to name your Nokia co-inventor. The Nokia employee makes an invention submission in Nokia’s internal invention portal and you, the external, makes a similar invention submission in the Invent With Nokia portal. Please ask your Nokia contact to go to the “Inventor Central” intranet pages and look under “How To Invent With An External Inventor?”

· Does Invent With Nokia keep my idea secure? Is it used by Nokia without my consent?

Invent With Nokia understands the value of your inventions/ideas and hence gives the highest priority to the security of these invention submissions. That’s why we keep on testing our site regularly to make it secure from security threats. Further, Nokia does not use any idea received from Invent With Nokia without the inventor’s consent. However, if the same idea is already in the public domain, or Nokia is, or has been independently developing a similar idea, then the inventor’s consent is not needed. If Nokia decides not to pursue the idea, the rights of the inventor’s submission are released back to the inventor, subject to the Invent With Nokia Terms & Conditions.

· Does Invent With Nokia accept business ideas, dealership offers, marketing offers, feedback, job request, complaints etc.?

No, Invent With Nokia is not the correct forum for this. Invent With Nokia will not entertain anything other than intellectual property submissions via this portal.

· How do I contact the Invent With Nokia team?

To contact with Invent With Nokia team, you need to register yourself in the portal. Once you submit any invention/idea, you can use “Add/View Notes” section of your submission to contact us for your requests/queries. Once you have entered your query in the Notes section we will respond to you as soon as possible.

· I have made drawing(s), presentation(s), etc. describing my invention/idea. How can I share them with Invent With Nokia?

Unfortunately, privileges of uploading drawings, presentations, files etc. are not given to inventors in the initial stage. We encourage you to submit your idea in textual format and try to explain your idea on a non-confidential basis, just enough to let the Nokia technology experts see merit in your submission. If Nokia technology experts feel that your submission is interesting and has potential for Nokia, we will promote you to the next level. Then it is at this level that you are required to submit a detailed description of your invention/idea in a different template where you have option to upload figures, presentation or any supporting documents related to your invention/idea.

· I have filed a patent application myself. Can I submit it in Invent With Nokia?

Yes, you can submit the filed patent application details on Invent With Nokia. But you need to provide us with complete patent application details i.e. patent application number and also the country in which the patent application was filed/published/issued. We need these details to study your patent application to understand the potential strength of your submission and evaluate it comprehensively. However, if the patent application has been filed but is not available in the public domain (i.e. not published), we request you to provide us the brief description about your patent application for our evaluation. In case you do not want to disclose the invention of your patent application before the publication of your patent application, please make your submission in Invent With Nokia with the complete patent filing details once your patent application gets published in the public domain.

· I have published my invention in a research paper or internet web-link. Is my invention acceptable to Invent With Nokia?

No, Invent With Nokia will not accept information supplied in the form of internet web-links. The portal provides a platform for a full disclosure of all sources that you are comfortable sharing. If there’s a secondary source provided taken from another portal/web-link, then this serves as public disclosure of the invention. In Nokia, we consider patent filings on a global level. As global patent protection will no longer be possible, it’s only in exceptional cases that we file patent applications after the publication of an invention. Hence, we request that all inventors do NOT disclose their invention/idea in any public form on the internet/magazines/articles/research paper etc., if they wish to have an intellectual property protection for that idea.

· What are the various reasons of rejection of my inventions/ideas on Invent With Nokia?

There are several reasons why your invention/idea may get rejected on Invent With Nokia. A few of them are as follows: - Not enough information provided: - The basic criterion of patent prosecution and grant is that there should be sufficient information to enable a skilled person to easily realize your idea. Hence, our technical experts require detailed information in order to make an informed decision about the potential of your idea. Lack of sufficient information related to your idea may lead to rejection of your idea. - Existence of prior art in public domain: - Many ideas are good ideas, but Invent With Nokia looks out for patentable inventions/ideas for which novelty is one of the fundamental criteria that should be adhered to. In other words, your invention/idea should be clearly distinct from the prior art(s) available in the public domain. - Out of domain submission: - Invention/idea submissions which are not in line with Nokia’s future vision and strategy have less chances of selection as Nokia might not be interested in patenting such ideas. Please check what we are looking for here: http://inventwithnokia.nokia.com/what-are-we-looking-for

· How do I improve my chances of getting my submission accepted on Invent With Nokia?

Many a times, an idea may not be accepted by Nokia because of the availability of prior art in the public domain. In such a case, that particular idea cannot be patented. We recommend that prior to submitting any invention/idea on Invent With Nokia, do try to do internet searching on the subject you are proposing. If you find similar ideas on the internet, it becomes very likely that your idea will be turned down by us too. The less of a similarity of what’s been done before, the greater the likelihood of your invention becoming acceptable for the next stage of the patenting process with Invent With Nokia. For more details, please refer to our other blogs in the Blog section using https://inventwithnokia.nokia.com/blog

· How will Nokia decide the value of my invention submission?

In the industry, where each product generally consists of multiple patented inventions, it is very early to predict the real value of an invention when it is not yet patented. Also, we do not know in the beginning as to what kind of patent claims will be allowed by the patent offices during the grant of patent. Such claims may not be as broad and useful as what was hoped for in the beginning. This generally happens in spite of the thorough internal analysis before the patent application is filed. That is why, we provide two standard offers to choose from for every invention submission. If Nokia technology experts feel that submission is interesting and has potential for Nokia, we will promote the inventor to the next level, at that point of time these standard offers become visible to the inventor.

· What is Share & Earn referral scheme?

The “Share and Earn” referral scheme is where we give our inventors an option to invite their friends/family/acquaintances to the Invent With Nokia platform. A successful referral will earn you 1000 EUROS.For more details, please refer https://inventwithnokia.nokia.com/share-and-earn.