Lab notebook11/23/2023 ![]() ![]() Research funded by the EU requires records to be kept for at least 20 years though a completed Laboratory Notebook should be retained for a minimum of 6 years, or longer depending on circumstances. This is heavily reliant upon the production of clear, convincing, documentary evidence to support the precise timing of an invention and/or its reduction to practice, laboratory notebooks are critically important to this process and to any subsequent justification as in the case of alleged Patent infringement or in an audit exercise conducted by a public funder. ‘Reduction to practice’, however, can be ‘constructive’ (by filing a patent) or ‘actual’ by the construction and successful testing of a prototype of the invention. Generally a sketch and a brief written description are sufficient to establish ‘conception’. US patent law requires proof of both ‘invention’ and ‘conception’, the formulation of the complete means for solving a problem in such a way that one of ordinary skill in the art could practice the invention without unduly exercising extensive research or experimentation and ‘reduction to practice’, the making and testing of the invention, and determining that it will work for its intended purpose. Unlike the practice in the UK and Europe, whereby a patent is awarded based on the first to file a patent application citing the new technology, US patent law requires that inventors satisfy its ‘first to invent’ criteria and the laboratory book is important documentary evidence of the conception and reduction to practice of an invention. The measure of a scientific truth is the ability to reproduce the experiment and the content of a Laboratory Book should support and permit faithful replication. In accordance with GLP, the Data Protection Act 1998 and Freedom of Information Act 2000, it is imperative that Laboratories maintain accurate records of all experiments conducted.Ī Laboratory Notebook should state what you did and what you observed and should understandable to a stranger.
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