Science Lab notebooks - protecting biotechnology and gene patents.

Lab notebooks

Patents are not necessarily awarded to the first to file, but sometimes awarded to the person who was first to invent. A good laboratory notebook can help protect against claims of prior invention, or to prove prior invention.

Some of the qualities of a good notebook are:

Bound and numbered pages
Dates when an idea was formed and work begun and completed recorded
Initial statements of objectives prior to experiments
Full citations of standard protocols
Test results attached to notebook, signed and dated across added page and underlying notebook page.
Conclusions and evaluation of results
Every page signed and dated by inventor and a witness

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