For inventors, research teams and technology transfer offices

A strong invention still needs a clear route to the market.

STI helps inventors and research teams turn results into something an industrial customer will buy: a validated application, protected IP, a first pilot and the right commercial structure – a new company, a licence or a sale.

Describe your invention

Photograph: a brass portrait lens built by Voigtländer in 1840 to the design of Josef Petzval, who was born in Spišská Belá

Why good inventions stall

Four gaps we work on

Application focus – many possible uses, none tested with a customer.
Industrial validation – laboratory results that nobody has reproduced at pilot scale.
IP position – filings that do not cover the product, or ownership that is unclear.
Commercial structure – no company, no licensee and no funding to bridge the gap.

Our process

First reviewA short, non-confidential description. We tell you within five working days whether we will look further.
Technology and IP assessmentOur engineers and IP advisers look at the data, the claims and freedom to operate.
Market validationInterviews and tests with industrial users to find the first application worth pursuing.
Commercialisation planNew company, licence or sale – with the budget, partners and funding route.
ExecutionInvestment, pilot and first customers, where agreed.

Who we work with

From independent inventors to university portfolios

Independent inventors

We judge the evidence, not the institution behind it.

Research teams

Results ready to leave the laboratory, with a team willing to follow them.

Universities and TTOs

Licensing, joint creation of spin-offs, and a home for patents the university no longer wants to maintain.

EU project partners

Key exploitable results that need an owner, an investor or a market route after the grant ends.

A patent family you can no longer afford? Ask us before you stop paying the fees. A lapse ends the patent right; it does not erase the invention, but it usually removes the protection that makes investment possible. IP and patents

Inventors who went before you

Great ideas from our region – and what became of them.

The history of Central European invention is also a history of commercialisation won and lost. A good invention needs protection, a partner and a route to market.

Lithograph portrait of Josef Petzval, 1854 — **Josef Petzval** (1807–1891), born in Spišská Belá. His portrait lens of 1840 was produced in large numbers by Voigtländer; Petzval himself drew little benefit from it.

Photograph portrait of Aurel Stodola, around 1890 — **Aurel Stodola** (1859–1942), born in Liptovský Mikuláš. Professor at ETH Zurich and a founder of steam and gas turbine engineering.

Landscape painting of a valley with mountains, painted by Jozef Murgaš in 1885 — **Jozef Murgaš** (1864–1929), born in Tajov. Painter and priest, he obtained US patents for wireless telegraphy from 1904. He painted this view in 1885.

Patent drawing of Štefan Banič's parachute, 1914 — **Štefan Banič** (1870–1941), born in Neštich. A construction worker in the United States, he patented a parachute in 1914 and gave it to the US Army.

Illustration: a telegraph key whose signal turns into a glowing network of data above a city — From the telegraph key to the data network: an invention becomes valuable when it finds its route to use.

Start with a one-page summary

What it does, what it has proven, who owns it. Keep confidential details until a confidentiality agreement is in place.

Describe your invention