Step 1

Innovations can take many forms in government and, when you (as an individual or as part of a team) generate an innovation, you should submit a description of how it works to your government department. Each government department has a relevant process for this – for example, at the Ministry of Defence this would be handled through the Defence Intellectual Property Rights Group (DIPR).

You will be asked to fill in a form describing all the elements of your innovation and you will meet with the department’s IP team to decide on what to do next. It is usually at this point that you will first speak to us at Ploughshare, where the next step after this is to examine and validate the intellectual property behind the innovation.

Step 2