The Intellectual Property Regime and its Implications for Knowledge Exchange A report to HEFCE

Foreword I said in my foreword to the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge/PACEC's first working paper 1 that intellectual property (IP) wasn't everything. And I believe that. Our universities and colleges, their staff and students, have enormous potential to serve society and support the economy in a huge variety of ways, many based on people and relationships not IP. But IP matters, and it matters a great deal to some vital UK business success stories-our country's strengths in health industries or aerospace engineering. Some universities, subjects and academics do generate IP, and some of those ideas create the new businesses, business sectors or technologies that will be the source of our economic growth. This report from PACEC/CBR demonstrates that our universities and colleges have taken their service to society seriously by putting in place the policies and practices to nurture IP and get it out into the world of use. But it also suggests that some institutions may be more effective and efficient in this highly specialist area, for quite understandable reasons like critical mass and established track record. So it may point to the conclusion that Paul Wellings also came to in his report on IP and Research Benefits 2 , that HEIs should be more entrepreneurial in securing best IP expertise and collaborating. I hope that this report will help HE's experienced leaders and senior managers to consider how they might improve their efficiency and effectiveness in nurturing IP in the future. 1 Introduction 1.1.1 The potential for the negotiations over intellectual property (IP) between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and firms to create a barrier for knowledge exchange (KE) engagement and, as a result, reducing the flow of benefits from the HE sector to the economy and society, have received a lot of attention over the past decade. It has been the focus of a number of reviews including the Lambert Review (2003) and, most recently, the Wellings Review (2008). Intellectual property (IP) refers to the legal form of protection for inventions, brands, designs and creative works, with the four main types of IP rights being patents, copyright, designs and trademarks. 1.2 Background 1.2.1 The Lambert Review (2003) highlighted some of the difficulties that universities and businesses faced in negotiations over intellectual property arising out of research funded, at least partly, by industry. It argued that universities and businesses can have different interests and expectations over …