Intellectual Property Rights

Margaret LawlorBusiness Development Manager

Faculty of Medical Sciences3rd October 2013

copyright©NewcastleUniversity 2013

Research and Enterprise Services

– The Faculty Enterprise Teams works to protect and commercialise research results arising from all schools and institutes within the University

– A substantial amount of income can be generated through successful exploitation of intellectual property which can benefit the University, its employees and research sponsors

– Majority of bioscience/healthcare innovation still comes from academia

– In order to realise the true value of intellectual property, it must be properly protected and managed.

So what are inventions?

• Know how• Assays• Cell models• Medical devices• Engineered proteins• Antibodies

• Biomarkers• Drug targets• Therapeutic agents• Animal models• Etc, etc

Protecting Inventions

• Can it be protected?

– Patents: A legal right granted by a country– Owner can prevent others in that country from using,

making or selling the technology for approx. 20 years– Must be ‘novel’, ‘non-obvious’ and ‘capable of industrial

application’– Other ways to protect:

• Trade Secrecy – • Trademark-• Copyright

Commercial value

• Is it better than what’s gone before?– Small improvement or large step

• How big is the potential market?• Is that market currently satisfied?• How much development is needed?• What are competitors developing?

Advancing Discoveries to Beat Cancer

Creating Value to Attract Industry

• The University teaches and researches: it doesn’t take

products to market!

• For that, we need partners.

• Companies need an incentive to take on the risk and financial investment– Patent protection provides a time-limited monopoly which is essential to offset

the cost/risk associated with drug development

• Drug development is very high risk and costly (£500m +, 10 years to bring a drug to market)

• Intellectual property is an asset that can be used to generate money to fund further research, develop the university and potentially benefit inventors and society

Intellectual Property Assignment

– Agreeing to assign (transfer ownership) of intellectual property developed during your Research Project to Newcastle University

• University will pay all costs associated with protecting and commercialising the intellectual property

– Receive a share of any revenues obtained by the University upon commercialisation of your technology (as if member of staff)

– Agree to discuss your contribution to intellectual property, be named as an inventor (if appropriate) and complete/sign any necessary documents

Confidentiality

– Any information received or generated during the course of your time at University should be kept secret and confidential (unless known to be in the public domain)

• Lab meetings• Internal seminars• Coffee breaks

– All proposed publications to be submitted to your supervisor at least one month prior to submission/presentation

• Abstracts• Posters• Presentations• Manuscripts

– If publication contains patentable invention or commercially sensitive information you could be asked to withhold publication for up to 4 months.

Further information

• Enterprise team, Faculty of Medical Sciences• Ground floor, Leech building• fmsenterprise@ncl.ac.uk• 222 3461

Thank you!