IP filing habits of UK Higher Education Institutions - GOV.UK (PDF)

IP filing habits of UK Higher Education Institutions  2 Spin-out data has been provided by Beauhurst Beauhurst is a searchable database of the UK’s high- growth companies. Beauhurst's platform is trusted by thousands of business professionals to help them find, research and monitor the most ambitious businesses in Britain. Beauhurst collects data on every company that meets their unique criteria of high-growth; from equity-backed startups to accelerator attendees, academic spinouts and fast-growing scaleups. Beauhurst data is also used by journalists and researchers who seek to understand the high-growth economy, and powers studies by major organisations – including the British Business Bank, HM Treasury and Innovate UK – to help them develop effective policy. For more information and a free demonstration, visit www.beauhurst.com ISBN 978-1-910790-81-6 IP filing habits of UK Higher Education Institutions Published by The Intellectual Property Office April 2020 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 © Crown Copyright 2020 You may re-use this information (excluding logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov. uk/doc/open-government-licence/ or email:[email protected] Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned. Any enquiries regarding this publication should be sent to: The Intellectual Property Office Concept House Cardiff Road Newport NP10 8QQ Tel: 0300 300 2000 Fax: 01633 817 777 e-mail: [email protected] This publication is available from our website at www.gov.uk/ipo  Contents 1. Key findings……………………….. .................................................................................................. 4 2. Introduction………………………. ................................................................................................... 5 3. Things you need to know about this release ................................................................................... 6 4. IP overview……………………… ..................................................................................................... 6 4.1 HEIs and patents ..................................................................................................................... 7 4.2 HEIs and trade marks .............................................................................................................. 8 4.3 HEIs and designs ..................................................................................................................... 9 5. Collaboration trends………………. ............................................................................................... 10 5.1 Who do UK HEIs collaborate with? ........................................................................................ 10 5.2 What level of collaboration do UK HEIs exhibit? ..................................................................... 12 6. Patent coverage………………… .................................................................................................. 13 6.1 Where do UK HEIs seek protection for their inventions? ........................................................ 13 7. Overview of spin-outs…………… ................................................................................................. 14 7.1 Overview of UK HEI spin-outs’ interaction with IP .................................................................. 16 8. Areas of specialism…………….. ................................................................................................... 17 8.1 In which technology fields do UK HEIs and their spin-outs apply for patents? ........................ 17 8.2 What are the classifications of trade marks belonging to UK HEIs? ........................................ 19 9. Top applicants…….……………. ................................................................................................... 20 9.1 Which UK HEIs apply for patents? ......................................................................................... 20 9.2 Which UK HEIs have the most trade mark registrations and design registrations? ................. 22 Conclusions…………………………. ................................................................................................. 23 Appendices……………………………… ........................................................................................... 24 Appendix 1. Worldwide Patenting Activity .................................................................................... 24 Appendix 2. Trade marks with the IPO ......................................................................................... 25 Appendix 3. Publications in the USA ............................................................................................ 25 Appendix 4. WO and EP patent applications................................................................................ 26 Appendix 5. UK HEI patent families .............................................................................................. 26  4 1. Key findings • 1.1% of published patent applications, 0.3% of trade mark registrations, 0.1% of design registrations with the IPO during the period 1999 – 2018 have been from UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)1. • Of the 165 UK HEIs, 121 had at least one published patent application2, 140 had at least one trade mark registration and 39 had at least one design registration3 during the 1999 – 2018 period. • The number of patent collaborations between UK HEIs and businesses increased during the period 1999 – 2018. From the period 1999 – 2008 to 2009 – 2018 there was a 17% increase the number of published patent applications featuring a UK HEI and a business as co-applicants. • International collaborations for UK HEIs have been increasing. 62% of UK HEI patents with an international collaboration during the period 1999 – 2018 occurred since 2009, with the most noticeable increase being collaborations with the USA. • UK HEIs are increasing the rate at which they produce spin-out businesses. Of the 947 spin-outs incorporated during the period 2000 – 2016, 59% have been incorporated since 2011. 1 There are multiple paths to gaining protection for patents, trade marks and designs in the UK. For instance, the UK is a contracting state to the European Patent Convention (EPC), so a European Patent administered by the European Patent Office (EPO) will almost always designate the UK and these have not been taken into consideration here. Similarly, it is possible to gain protection for a trade mark or design in the UK by filing it with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and these have also not been taken into consideration here. For more information on European patents: https://www.epo.org/applying/european.html For more information EU trade marks and designs: https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/home 2 Any published patent application worldwide 3 UK registered trade marks and UK registered designs at the IPO  5 2. Introduction The UK government has set the target of being the most innovative country in the world by 20304, as part of the Industrial Strategy (2017); underlying this objective is the need to capture the value of science, research and creativity thus supporting innovations that drive UK productivity5. In particular, attention has been given to the role of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in helping the UK achieve this goal. For instance, the government has increased funding that supports universities and businesses working together to innovate and commercialise research6. The licencing of intellectual property (IP) and the creation of spin-out businesses have been highlighted as possible approaches that universities may wish to take to commercialise their research7. It is evident that in addition to business collaborations, in order to maintain the UK’s position as one of the world leaders in research and innovation, international collaborations will be necessary to help push scientific frontiers8. This report provides an overview of intellectual property (IP) trends for UK HEIs, looking at their collaboration behaviours and the technology sectors in which they operate. The IP filing behaviour of their spin-out businesses is also examined. 4 Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. (2017). Industrial Strategy: Building a Britain fit for the future (B5 PDF). Pg.63 Retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/industrial- strategy-building-a-britain-fit-for-the-future 5 Industrial Strategy pg.72 6 Research England. (2019, October). The Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF). Retrieved from http://re.ukri.org/knowledge-exchange/the-higher-education-innovation-fund-heif/ 7 Industrial Strategy pg.78-9 8 Industrial Strategy pg.67  6 3. Things you need to know about this release This report follows the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s (HESA) definition of a Higher Education Institution (HEI) and uses their list of Higher Education (HE) providers for the 2017/18 academic year to identify HEIs in the UK9. A combination of HESA’s list of HE providers, their historical data relating to mergers and name changes and a manual effort to identify technology transfer offices was used in conjunction with a fuzzy matching10 process to identify IP held by UK HEIs. The identification of spin-out businesses is based on Spinouts UK data, courtesy of Beauhurst11. It is the first survey to investigate the sector by adopting a ‘bottom up’ approach, compiling data company-by- company and updating it regularly. The UK HEI patent dataset on which the patent-related aspects of this report are based was obtained using the European Patent Office’s (EPO) PATSTAT12 data product (Autumn 2019 Edition). PATSTAT contains worldwide bibliographic and legal status published patent data and has become a standard in the field of patent intelligence and statistics. Throughout this report patents are counted either as single published patent applications or as patent families, depending on the context. A ‘patent application’ refers to a single patent application made in one jurisdiction and published in that jurisdiction. Patent applications are counted once regardless of the number of subsequent publications13. A ‘patent family’ refers to a group of patent applications made and published in different jurisdictions. Each member of a patent family is considered to relate to the same invention. A patent family is counted once regardless of the number of family members it contains. In the analysis of patents in this report, patent applications were restricted to those having a first publication date in the range 1999 – 2018. Patent families were also restricted to those having a first publication date of the oldest family member in the range 1999 – 2018. The UK HEI trade mark dataset on which the trade mark related aspects of this report are based was obtained using the Intellectual Property Office’s (IPO) trade mark data14. Therefore, analysis of trade marks is restricted to only those that have been registered with the IPO, as well as the further restriction of trade mark registrations having a registration date in the range 1999 – 2018. Similarly, the UK HEI design dataset was obtained using the IPO’s design data. Therefore, analysis of designs is restricted to only those that have been registered with the IPO, as well as the further restriction of design registrations having a registration date in the range 1999 – 2018. HEI data related to IP and spin-outs is also available in the Higher Education Business & Community Interaction (HE-BCI) survey15. HE providers report spin-out activity and patenting activity to HESA who are responsible for collecting this data. In this report, only patent applications with an HEI or a technology transfer office listed as an applicant are considered. In addition, due to differences in data collection methods and possible discrepancies in definitions, there are some inconsistencies in figures relating to spin-out businesses. 9 HESA. (2019, July). Higher education providers. Retrieved from https://www.hesa.ac.uk/support/providers 10 Fuzzy matching is a computer-aided technique by which words or phrases are found that approximately match each other 11 www.beauhurst.com 12 https://www.epo.org/searching-for-patents/business/patstat 13 A patent application may be re-published during processing (e.g. at later search; following correction; at grant). In this dataset each application is counted once under its year of first publication 14 A snapshot of trade mark applications received by the Intellectual Property Office is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ipo-trade-mark-data-release 15 UKRI (2020, February). HE-BCI Survey. Retrieved from https://re.ukri.org/knowledge-exchange/the- he-bci-survey/  7 4. IP overview 4.1 HEIs and patents A patent is an intellectual property right granting the owner a monopoly over the exploitation of one or more products or processes. There are many ways an HEI may use their patent, such as licensing to a third party or to help create a spin-out company16, to enable their research to have an economic and social impact. Academic patenting is a useful mechanism by which technology is transferred from universities to industry and is where some argue academic patents serve their greatest purpose17. Whilst the use of patent counts as a proxy for innovation is questionable18, it should at least be clear that patents can be key to the successful exploitation of new ideas originating from UK HEIs. The increase seen in patenting activity for UK HEIs (Figure 1) is roughly proportional to the global increase in patenting activity19. Figure 1: There has been a gradual increase in the patenting activity of UK HEIs during the period 1999 – 2018 UK HEI patent applications by year of first publication from 1999 to 2018 Source: European Patent Office – PATSTAT 16 A patent will not necessarily be assigned to a spin-out company and may instead be licensed to the spin-out from the university 17 Cervantes M., (2019, October), Academic Patenting: How universities and public research organizations are using their intellectual property to boost research and spur innovative start-ups, WIPO. Retrieved from https://www.wipo.int/sme/en/documents/academic_patenting.html 18 The IPO has published a guide to understanding and interpreting patent data. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-patent-guide 19 See Appendix 1 0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 Published patent applications Year of first publication  8 4.2 HEIs and trade marks A trade mark is a sign which can distinguish the origin of goods and/or services from those of competitors20. They can play a pivotal role in protecting the reputation of an organisation and are often associated with the commercialisation of goods. The commercialisation of goods is not a prominent feature of the remit of universities and is perhaps why there are relatively few trade mark registrations from 1999 to 2018 with a UK HEI as the lead proprietor. Only 0.3% of trade marks registered at the IPO between 1999 and 2018 have a UK HEI as their proprietor21. Though the trade mark activity of UK HEIs has increased over the 20-year period, it has fallen as a percentage of all trade marks registered with the IPO. This is due to a large increase in trade mark registrations with the IPO22 which has not been as prominent amongst UK HEIs. Figure 2: Trade mark registrations from HEIs at the IPO have increased over the past two decades UK HEI trade mark registrations with the IPO by year of registration from 1999 to 2018 Source: IPO – Trade mark data 20 More information on the analysis of trade mark data is available in our trade mark guide https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-trade-mark-guide 21 It is important to note that trade mark and design data are restricted to those registered with the IPO only 22 See Appendix 2 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 Trade mark registrations Registration year  9 4.3 HEIs and designs Design registrations give the owner protection over the shape and configuration of objects, but provide no protection relating to their function. A design may already automatically have some protection without being registered as either an unregistered design23 or under copyright law. As there are only a small number of design registrations from UK HEIs, the peaks and troughs seen in Figure 3 tend to be a result of concentrated filing behaviour from one or two UK HEIs. For example, 30 registrations in 2004 belong to a single UK HEI and these were their only registrations in the 20-year period. Figure 3: UK HEIs use designs sparingly UK HEI design registrations by year of registration from 1999 to 2018 Source: IPO – Designs data 23 IPO (Jan, 2020) Design right, Retrieved from: https://www.gov.uk/design-right 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Registered Designs Registration Years  10 5. Collaboration trends 5.1 Who do UK HEIs collaborate with? Patents can have multiple parties listed as named co-applicants. This means that ownership of the patent is shared between the co-applicants and that the invention was a consequence of some collaborative activity between the parties. There are limitations to using co-applicant data as a proxy for collaborations. It is possible that HEIs or their collaborators will be advised against filing as a co-applicant. It is likely that the number of patent applications that involved a collaboration are higher than reported below. As part of the Industrial Strategy, collaboration between universities and businesses has been encouraged24. This is to help maximise the opportunity to exploit IP commercially and to aid the transfer of technology. In addition, international collaborations are encouraged as they potentially make it easier to open IP to a wider market and are also seen as necessary to keep research and development in the UK at the cutting edge25. Prior to the publication of the Industrial Strategy in 2017, there has been a moderate rise in collaborations between businesses and UK HEIs on patents (Figure 4), which supports the notion that UK HEIs are working more closely with businesses. The organisations UK HEIs are most likely to collaborate with are other UK HEIs. Over 90% of the patent families from UK HEIs that featured co-applicants had another UK HEI as at least one of those co- applicants26. Figure 4: There has been increasing collaboration between businesses and UK HEIs Count of patent families from UK HEIs with a co-applicant split by the organisation type of the co- applicant from 1999 to 2018 Source: European Patent Office – PATSTAT Notes: 1. An application can have multiple co-applicants from a variety of organisation types, hence the sum of patent applications with co-applicants across types is greater than the total number of patent applications with co- applicants. 24 Industrial Strategy pg.79 25 Industrial Strategy pg.63 26 Data for collaborations between UK HEIs is available in the accompanying Excel document for this report 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 Patent families with UK HEI co- applicant Year of first publication Business UK Government HEI (Non-UK) Non-UK Gov  11 On the rise are international collaborations, especially with the USA (Figure 5). In addition, patent applications to the USA from UK HEIs have shown a strong increase27. This suggests UK HEIs are working more closely with the USA. Figure 5: UK HEIs are increasingly collaborating internationally, most notably with the USA Count of patent families from UK HEIs with a co-applicant split by co-applicant country from 1999 to 2018 Source: European Patent Office – PATSTAT Notes: 1. Shows designated country of co-applicants, excluding those based in the UK, where the data is available in PATSTAT 2. The five countries shown are those with which UK HEIs have collaborated with the most 27 See Appendix 3 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 Patent families with UK HEI co-applicant Year of first publication United States of America Japan Germany Canada France  12 5.2 What level of collaboration do UK HEIs exhibit? The proportion of patents that UK HEIs collaborate on varies by institution. On average 69% of UK HEI patent families feature a collaboration, but for some this is as high as or even higher than 80%, such as The University of St Andrews, The University of Aberdeen and The University of Leicester. The Institute of Cancer Research, which is a college of The University of London, has a collaboration rate of 92%. Each UK HEI will have their own IP strategy and policy which are not necessarily publicly available. This can potentially impact the likelihood of a collaborator being featured as a co-applicant on a patent application. Other factors such as field of research and source of funding may have an impact. Therefore, the proportion of patent applications featuring a co-applicant should not be viewed as a strict proxy for collaboration levels. Figure 6: On average, a co-applicant features in 69% of UK HEI patent families Percentage of patent families which feature a UK HEI as a co-applicant over the period 1999 to 2018 split by UK HEI Source: European Patent Office – PATSTAT Notes: 1. Only UK HEIs to have more than 130 patent applications featuring a co-applicant during the period 1999 to 2018 are featured in this chart. 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% University College London The University of Strathclyde The University of St Andrews The University of Southampton The University of Sheffield The Queen's University of Belfast Queen Mary University of London The University of Oxford University of Nottingham The University of Manchester The University of Leeds King's College London Imperial College of Science Technology and… The University of Glasgow The University of Edinburgh The University of Dundee Cardiff University The University of Cambridge The University of Bristol The University of Birmingham Percentage of patent families with a co-applicant  13 6. Patent coverage 6.1 Where do UK HEIs seek protection for their inventions? To maximise the potential of a patent, an applicant may wish to seek protection for their invention in multiple jurisdictions. UK HEIs have sought protection internationally for 91% of their patent families that were first published between 1999 and 2018. This could suggest the intention to trade internationally and an awareness of the benefit of gaining international IP protection for this. In 2008, Prof. Paul Wellings made several recommendations to assist UK HEIs in the effective use of their IP. In his report it was remarked that UK HEIs had a poor level of US patenting relative to other economies28. Since 2008, there has been a clear rise in the number of patent applications in the USA. From 2002 to 2008 approximately 1 in 4 patent families had the USA as one of its publication authorities, whereas from 2009 to 2018, this ratio was closer to 1 in 2 patent families29. It may seem that UK HEIs seeks protection for their inventions in the UK less than one would expect. However, it is important to be aware that nearly every patent application with the European Patent Office (EPO) will be granted for all contracting states to the European Patent Convention (EPC) which includes the UK30. Figure 7: UK HEIs show a strong inclination to seek international protection for their inventions Top 20 publication authorities by number of patent applications from UK HEIs for period 1999 to 2018 Source: European Patent Office – PATSTAT 28 Wellings, P. (2008). Intellectual Property and Research Benefits. Lancaster University 29 See Appendix 3 30 There is a more detailed description of European patents and PCT patents in Appendix 4 0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000 India Russian Federation Israel Norway Taiwan Singapore Hong Kong Mexico South Africa New Zealand Japan Brazil Republic of Korea China Canada United Kingdom Australia United States of America EPO WIPO (PCT) Published patent applications Publication authority  14 7. Overview of spin-outs A possible route to maximise the impact of a university’s IP is to create a spin-out business. A university spin-out is a new company that is created in order to commercialise IP originating from within the university31. Universities often remain stakeholders in the company and the company may benefit from having access to university workspace facilities and other resources32. There has been a rise in the number of university spin-outs since 2000 (Figure 8), though it should be noted that the volume of spin-outs is not an appropriate metric to measure their success. An examination of investment, turnover and survival rates of spin-outs would provide a more complete picture33. The government is committed to supporting the spin-out businesses even further, having allocated an additional £44m of grant funding in 2017/18 to Innovate UK to support, among other duties, the development of high-growth businesses34. In addition, the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)35 has the aim of promoting knowledge exchange between HEIs and the wider world. This includes supporting HEIs as they spin-out businesses. As part of the Industrial Strategy, HEIF funding has increased and will reach a total of £250m a year by 2020-2136. Spin-out businesses can add value to and generate jobs in their local economies37, which are often in the same locality as their parent university (Figure 9). Approximately half of the spin-outs with a registered office in London are from UK HEIs that are not based in London. The University of Oxford and The University of Cambridge have a greater tendency than other non-London based universities to produce spin-outs with a registered office address in London. 31 Ulrichsen. T. C. (2019). Developing University Spinouts in the UK: Key Trends in Spinout Activity, Investments and Investor Involvement 32 Beauhurst. (2018, September). UK University Spinouts: who are they and their investors?. Retrieved from https://about.beauhurst.com/blog/uk-university-spinouts-investors/ 33 The Rees Review features a detailed analysis of HEI spin-outs and a comprehensive data annex. In this report Beauhurst data is used to examine spin-out behaviour, whilst The Rees Review uses a master data set that combines data from Beauhurst, HE-BCI and Gateway to Research. https://re.ukri.org/sector-guidance/publications/independent-advice-on-university-investor-links-mike- rees-report/ 34 Industrial Strategy pg.69 35 UKRI. Higher Education Innovation Fund. Retrieved from https://re.ukri.org/knowledge-exchange/the-higher-education-innovation-fund-heif/ 36 Industrial Strategy pg.80 37 Cebr, (2018), High Growth Small Business Report 2018: Rebalancing the economy: Unlocking the potential of the fastest growing smaller companies in the UK, Octopus pg.9  15 Figure 8: There has been a rise in the incorporation rate of UK HEI spin-out businesses from 2000 to 2016 Count of UK HEI spin-outs by incorporation year from 2000 to 201638 Source: Beauhurst – Spinouts UK Figure 9: UK HEI spin-outs tend to stay close to their parent university Venn diagram showing the proximity of spin-outs to their parent university from 2000 to 2018 Source: Beauhurst – Spinouts UK, Companies House – Free Company Data Product (May 2019) Notes: 1. The data set is restricted to those companies that were still live as of May 2019 2. In cases where the spin-out has multiple parent HEIs the address of the first listed HEI is used. 3. For HEIs with multiple campuses, the address of the main point of contact is used. 4. Diagram is not to scale. The size of circles does not represent the proportion of spin-outs that fall into a particular region. 38 Data has been limited to end of 2016 for Figure 8. Current data suggests that in recent years there has been a fall in the output of spin-outs. However, this may be due to a lag in the data. This is because the legal entity of the spinout is sometimes incorporated before the company actually spins out; some academics have existing companies that become the spinouts vehicle 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Count of spin-outs Incorporation year