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SCIENCE MINISTER LAUNCHES NEW GUIDE TO PROTECT UK’S INNOVATIVE IDEAS
Added: (Tue Mar 19 2002)
News release is available online at
http://www.prowse.co.uk/newsf.html
18 March 2002
NEWS RELEASE
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SCIENCE MINISTER LAUNCHES NEW GUIDE TO PROTECT UK’S INNOVATIVE IDEAS
Helping Britain’s scientists safeguard their cutting edge inventions
Britain’s best innovators can learn how to make the most of their creative ideas thanks to a new guide launched by Science Minister Lord Sainsbury today.
The ‘Managing Intellectual Property’ guide provides strategic advice to universities about how to safeguard their creations and inventions.
Produced by the DTI, Patent Office, Universities UK and Association of University Research and Industry Links, the guide aims to highlight key themes and share the good practice found in UK universities in managing intellectual property. It contains crucial advice on:
· budget management – how to reduce investment risks, and how financial returns can be negotiated by a university;
· ownership of intellectual property and negotiations with sponsors;
· collaboration between universities to manage intellectual property; and
· performance indicators and evaluation – how university managers can identify problems and opportunities relating to intellectual property management and modify their budgets and strategies accordingly.
Lord Sainsbury said: “The UK has some of the best scientific brains in the world. Helping turn their new ideas into prosperity and jobs is essential in maintaining the strength of the UK economy.
“By managing intellectual property effectively the UK can take full advantage of research, bringing potential improvements in quality of life, and increased prosperity. I hope the advice in this guide will support our universities in turning brilliant research into excellent business.”
The guide also draws universities’ attention to how a well managed IP portfolio can help them be a more attractive partner to research sponsors, and ensures researchers have access to the results of their research for future projects and teaching.
Professor John Archer, Principal of Heriot-Watt University and Chair of the Steering Committee, which produced the report, said: “Good Intellectual Property management is essential for knowledge transfer and it also contributes to other university aims and objectives. This guide seeks to help vice-chancellors and senior managers in universities by identifying the issues that need to be addressed if the potential benefits of effective Intellectual Property management are to be realised. We hope, however, that audiences both within and outside Higher Education will find the guide useful.”
Dr Philip Graham, Executive Director, Association of University Research and Industry Links (AURIL), Queens University of Belfast, said: “In this guide, we have tried to highlight and share the good practice that can be found in the broadly successful record of UK universities in managing Intellectual Property. Much of this success is due to efforts of university industrial liaison staff. We very much hope that this guide will impress upon top managers the need for them to properly support these efforts, and to recognise the key role that effective Intellectual Property management and support can play in their institution’s well being.”
Notes to Editors
1. Copies of the guide are available at the Patent Office website at www.patent.gov.uk or telephone 01633-813775.
2. Intellectual property, often known as IP, allows ownership of creativity and innovation in the same way that physical property can be owned. The owner of IP can control and be rewarded for its use.
3. ‘Excellence and Opportunity’ the 2000 Government White Paper on science and innovation policy looks at the importance of effective management of intellectual property arising from public funded research.
4. ‘Managing Intellectual Property’ is designed to help inform and support the activities of vice-chancellors and senior managers in universities - who may not themselves be specialists in the management of intellectual property - as they and their colleagues develop their institutions' strategies and policies.
5. The guide focuses on the strategic aspects of IP management within universities, but some discussion of policy and operational considerations is also included to illustrate how these flow from strategic decisions. It concentrates on IP arising from research and its exploitation through sale, licensing and the establishment of spin-out companies. Many of the issues are, however, generic to other forms of IP and exploitation routes.
6. The Guide was prepared by SQW Limited (with technical assistance from TWI Ltd) and was overseen by a Steering Committee, chaired by Professor John Archer, Principal of Heriot-Watt University, and comprising staff from the sponsoring bodies and a range of universities. It reflects extensive consultations both within and outside the HE sector – including, research funding bodies, economic development agencies, businesses and financial institutions. A consultation document was widely circulated and made available on the internet.
7. The Patent Office has been an Executive Agency of the DTI since March 1990 and has operated as a Trading Fund since October 1991. The Patent Office is responsible for implementing the national framework governing intellectual property rights (including copyright) and for representing the UK’s interests in the development of the international intellectual property rights system.
8. Universities UK is the representative body for the executive heads of all UK universities: it works to advance the interests of universities and to spread good practice throughout the higher education sector.
9. AURIL (The Association for University Research & Industry Links) represents industrial liaison, technology transfer and research administration specialists in the UK and Ireland. SQW is an independent consultancy whose specialist areas include higher education and science and innovation policy.