The U-M Battery Lab will never publish, share, or otherwise breach your intellectual property protections. Users can take additional steps to keep sensitive or proprietary data private.
How IP Is Protected
Service Agreement: Work conducted at the U-M Battery Lab is done under a service agreement, and if requested, a non-disclosure agreement. The lab is operated as a “service unit” on campus, meaning that staff members do not engage in the active generation of intellectual property alongside users. This frees staff up from any potential entanglements and ensures that users retain their intellectual property for themselves.
One User Group at a Time: To further protect users’ intellectual property, only one user group at a time can reserve each area of the Battery Lab. There will never be anyone in your reserved area who isn’t a member of the Battery Lab staff, your company, or an entity that you’ve expressly granted permission to enter.
Cell Cycler Safeguards: Our cell cyclers are never accessed by users without direct supervision from a member of the Battery Lab staff. Cycling data is handled by Voltaiq, allowing users to view and manage their data remotely.
Additional Steps:
- Sensitive characterization data should be taken with you. Please delete any sensitive data off of the control computer hard drive before leaving.
- If you are concerned about disclosing formulations, etc. via MSDS, you may send extra information to help obscure the identity of the product. We will only require that it be positively identified in the unlikely event of an accident.
- Feel free to use codenames, etc. on all samples and products.
Process & Parameter Documentation
Users should feel free to take notes, pictures, video, etc. during their reserved time in the Battery Lab to document the fabrication process. Please be sure to record all parameters of interest to your research, as the Battery Lab staff does not capture every setting and result that may be important to your organization.
The cell build sheet that the Battery Lab staff uses to ensure the quality of your cell build is NOT available to our users. We will, however, archive the information in the event you want to refer to the parameters we capture during a subsequent visit. Upon request, the spreadsheet can be exported as a PDF file.