Latest blog from Green Frontiers - Freeing the IP

Monday’s FT featured a ‘below the fold’ lead and page-two news item by Enterprise Correspondent Jonathan Moules. ‘University leads way with free research offer’ reports on an announcement from the University of Glasgow that it is ‘revolutionising the relationship between academic research and commercial enterprise’ through offering its intellectual property free of charge to British businesses and entrepreneurs.

Moules writes: “If a company can demonstrate that it can use the university’s discoveries for commercial application, it will be offered free rein to do so with no fees attached.”

The initiative was soundly backed by former Dragon, Doug Richards, declaring: “It’s something that everybody has dreamed about in the tech community.” But admitted: “Some will love it. Some will hate it.”

Interested in getting a broader academic perspective I asked Clive Rowland, CEO of the University of Manchester’s Intellectual Property Ltd (UMIP), who takes the University's science and technology to the market place through IP sale, licence or spin-out, for his opinion.

Clive commented: “This is definitely a novel way of promoting and marketing university IP, which is always a challenge.

“In theory it should be consistent with a university’s socially responsible concept/mission as it will only be assigned or licensed (even on a free basis) if a firm can demonstrate it can do something with it, which is a good test of merit and interest.

“It also appears that Glasgow is reserving the right to keep a percentage of their IP in-house, which suggest a sensible, balanced “horses for courses” approach to IP commercialisation.”

So on that basis Glasgow could still keep the best bits for themselves? How attractive will the ‘Glasgow model’ be to businesses and investors?

Mark Rahn is an Investment Manager at MTI Partners, a specialist VC investor in University spin-out technology companies: “A big question is who would be incentivised to do the ‘heavy lifting’ - turning raw technology into something that a company could use?  IP developed by academics is rarely ‘packaged up’, and universities have to play a role in getting IP ready for commercialisation.

Mark continues: “Patenting is also expensive and if IP is not protected it would be less valuable to a company.  So if the Institution does not get a reward for these time consuming and expensive activities why would they be done with skill, or done at all?”

Clive Rowland supports this position: “If there is still a proprietary position being maintained by the University, there could be a financial challenge for us in how to fund and recover the original patenting costs, which are usually substantial.”

Clive concludes: “But this wouldn’t apply in, for example, software or other copyrighted IP. Gains in other projects where we have successfully commercialised could be used to offset such costs.”

It’s a reality that many of the UK’s green technological advancements have and will come out of its leading Universities, and any new model that furthers the commercialisation of academic research should be embraced.

Although there are question marks regarding the practicalities of Glasgow’s model, it must be viewed as positive that the University has actively chosen to link the issues of IP, investment and commercialisation in such a high profile manner through the national media.

The next step is much harder: to prove if a big PR ‘win’ is genuine and can actually deliver commercially valuable IP to UK business.

 

For more visit http://green-frontiers.net