About PROvendis

As the central patent marketing agency of the universities of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, PROvendis offers a large array of services for scientists, ranging from invention assessment to support throughout the patenting process to commercialization. At the same time, PROvendis is your partner in business, offering you exclusive access to the extensive patent portfolio of the North Rhine-Westphalian universities.

PROvendis GmbH was founded as part of the federal commercialisation initiative on October 24, 2001 as a wholly owned subsidiary of ZENIT GmbH. There are 24 universities of North Rhine-Westphalia the exclusive associates of PROvendis GmbH. The supervisory board of PROvendis consits of seven members and one general guest of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

PROvendis is working as service provider in the patent group of the North Rhine-Westphalian universities to identify and commercialise market-relevant university inventions, and has been working successfully for further public research organisations.

 

Goal

“PROvendis” is made up of the Latin words “pro” (for) and “vendere” (to sell). The name stands for the core task of our company:

the international marketing of patentable and commercially exploitable inventions - from the identification of a potential licensee to contract monitoring.

Our declared goal is to enable universities in NRW to fully tap the economic potential of their innovations. Specifically, this means university inventions into revenues. We want to improve the cooperation between science and business by accelerating the idea to product process.

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PROvendis activities are supported by SIGNO-Hochschulen Deutschland. SIGNO is an initiative program of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) supporting German universities, enterprises and private inventors in technology transfer, usage of IP protection mechanisms and exploitation of inventions.



Furthermore, PROvendis is funded by the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MIWFT).