From Thesis to Trademark A Librarian's Guide to Accelerating Innovation

Abstract

Academic libraries are expanding their role beyond providing access to information. This poster presents the Business Services Department of the National Library of Technology (NTK) in Prague, which has developed a model of innovation support through the PATLIB network and the NCIP project.

Challenges: limited awareness of intellectual property (IP) rights among students, early-stage innovators and SMEs, together with the risk of commercialising research without understanding the IP landscape. NTK addresses these by providing strategic consultations, IP scans, trademark and patent searches, and media monitoring using freely accessible databases. The poster demonstrates how a library can become a trusted innovation partner by combining research support with IP expertise to help transform research outputs into protected innovations while assistant economic resilience.

Our experience shows that academic libraries can evolve from information providers into innovation partners. This model can be adopted by other libraries through collaboration with national intellectual property offices. By integrating traditional library services with IP expertise and user feedback, libraries can create long-term impact and support innovation ecosystems.