European Universities' Patenting Activity

 

Jane Lambert

In October 2024 the European Patent Office published The Role of European Universities in Patenting and Innovation, A Study of Academic Inventions at the EPO.  The study claims to be "the first-ever comprehensive overview of the role European universities play in patenting and innovation on the European scale." 

The study notes that Europe is often perceived as a world-class academic power with top universities and publications. Europe faces difficulties transforming science into commercial activity compared to other advanced economies. The mismatch between academic excellence and commercial underperformance is sometimes called the 'European paradox'. The study states that this so-called European paradox has become a central policy issue in most European countries and also for the EU.

The study focuses on European universities' patenting activity as a way of addressing that paradox because a patent is essential to knowledge transfer. That is because an applicant for a patent is required by art 83 of the European Patent Convention to disclose the invention in a manner sufficiently clear and complete for it to be carried out by a person skilled in the art.   

One of the study's key findings is that the contribution of academic researchers to European patent applications has increased steadily in recent decades, and now exceeds 10% of all patents filed by European applicants at the EPO. The study finds that more than 1,200 European universities have generated patent applications at the EPO. Annex 2 to the study lists the top 10 universities for Germany, France and the UK and the top 5 for other countries between the years 2000 and 2020. There are 7 universities with over 1,000 academic patents in Germany, 6 in France and 4 in the UK (Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and UCL). Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland have 2 such universities each and Belgium, Finland and the Netherlands one each.

It is undeniably a good thing that knowledge is widely disseminated while being properly protected it has to be remembered that universities are not businesses though most have knowledge transfer offices and licensing companies.  It is my experience that they occasionally claim greater legal protection than they need or in some cases to which they are entitled to the detriment of the businesses that pay for the research,  
 

Any business contemplating research cooperation with a British university should seek advice either from a patent attorney or a solicitor or counsel specializing in IP with experience in licensing.  The Intellectual Property Office publishes several model university and business collaboration agreements known as "the Lambert toolkit".  The name of the toolkit refers to Sir Richard Lambert and not to me though I did attend one of the drafting sessions and thus made a small contribution towards their drafting.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on +44 (0)20 7404n 5252 during UK office hours or send me a message through my contact form at all other times.

I want to understand how innovation works - NESTA shows you how

Lots of people have bright ideas for new products or processes. That's called invention. Most of those bright ideas never see the light of day because they are just that. Bright ideas. They exist only in the inventor's mind without any regard to putting them into production or on retailers' shelves.

Putting a bright idea into practice to meet a genuine need is much more difficult. That's innovation. Of course innovation includes more than just inventions and it involves more than just scientists and engineers. For example, the current home page of NESTA (the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts) is headed "Meet the Dementia Innovators" and features what it calls "a living map of ageing innovators" (see "Dementia who's innovating" 19 Aug 2015).

NESTA provides a toolkit of videos, templates and information on the innovation process starting with the above video "An Introduction to Innovation".  It then proceeds to "Start a Project" which begins with the "Evidence Planning" template. I shall write more about this process in future articles.