Lab notebooks: dating your research work

A lab notebook is a research team's logbook. Day after day, it records hypotheses, protocols, experiments, results and ideas. In public laboratories as in corporate R&D, it remains the reference tool for keeping track of the work done.

What a lab notebook is for

It serves several purposes at once.

It ensures scientific traceability. A result must be understood, checked and reproduced. The notebook keeps the path that led to it.

It establishes a date. On the day an invention becomes an issue, you need to show who found what, and when. A well-kept notebook answers that question.

It protects the team's rights. Under French law, a person who already possessed an invention before a third party filed a patent for it can continue to exploit it. This is called prior personal possession. It still has to be proven, and the notebook is often the main piece of evidence.

It supports technology transfer. In a transfer or a license negotiation, the notebook documents where the results came from and what each person contributed.

The rules of a reliable paper notebook

Good practice for paper notebooks is well established. Pages are bound and numbered. Entries are written in ink, with no blank spaces. A mistake is crossed out with a single line and remains legible. Each page is dated and signed by its author, and often countersigned by a witness who is not involved in the work.

These rules share one goal: making any later change visible. That property is what gives the notebook its value.

Moving to an electronic notebook

Research work today mostly produces files: raw data, images, analysis scripts, presentations. An electronic lab notebook brings them together in one place, where they can be searched and shared.

It then needs to offer the same guarantees as paper. A file can be changed without leaving a visible trace. The date shown by a computer is easy to change. For an electronic notebook to have the same value, you need to establish two things: the date of each entry and the fact that it has not been changed since.

That is the role of timestamping. A timestamping service computes the file fingerprint, a unique string of characters derived from its content. The slightest change produces a different fingerprint. The fingerprint is then timestamped and recorded. Anyone can later verify that a file matches the one that was timestamped.

Good habits

Timestamp as you go. An entry timestamped the same day is worth far more than a batch of files timestamped at the end of a project.

Timestamp the raw data too. Formatted results are not enough. Measurement files, images and original datasets show that the work actually took place.

Keep track of contributions. In a joint project, noting who produced which result avoids many disagreements when naming inventors or sharing rights.

Timestamp before you communicate. A conference talk, a poster or a paper can make an invention public. Timestamp your work beforehand, and consult your technology transfer office if a patent is possible.

With Ipocamp, in practice

Ipocamp complements your lab notebook, whether paper or electronic. You deposit your scanned pages, exports, protocols and raw data. Each file gets a certificate showing its date and its fingerprint.

For a team, a shared workspace lets you group deposits by project and follow each person's contributions. If your laboratory already uses an electronic notebook tool, the API can automate a deposit for each new entry.

Find out more about our offers for laboratories and technology transfer and for R&D teams.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.