Intellectual Property Workshop Summary, Background and References

A report on The Effect of Intellectual Property Issues on Industry-University Partnerships
 
Summary
A workshop on the Effect of Intellectual Property Issues on Industry-University Partnerships was held in Arlington Virginia on April 3-4, 2008, hosted by the Council for Chemical Research (CCR) and supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). This workshop was designed to address intellectual property (IP) issues that have been identified in many studies and reports as the principal impediment toward expanding industry-university partnerships. At the same time these partnerships are critical to advancing research and development (R&D) which in turn enhance U.S. innovation and the competitiveness of U.S. industry.
 
The workshop was envisioned to be the first in a series of workshops to address IP issues in different industry sectors, and as such focused on the chemical research enterprise. It was further focused to address industry-sponsored university research, collaboration, and forward licensing. CCR is uniquely positioned to organize this particular workshop because of:
Its mission to benefit society by advancing research in chemistry, chemical engineering, and related disciplines through leadership collaboration across discipline, institution and sector boundaries, and
Its membership, which includes major chemical companies, and most of the leading US research universities and government laboratories that conduct chemical research.
Information sharing among members of the chemical research enterprise was the main objective of this workshop with the goal of facilitating future partnerships by making the stakeholders aware of the range of available models and approaches to establish mutually beneficial partnerships. In order to encourage “constructive engagement,” invitees to this workshop included researchers (PIs) as well as administrators (Presidents, VP for Research, Tech Transfer officials, etc) and legal counsels representing both industry and universities
 
IP issues around licensing of pre-existing technologies developed by universities as well as the issues associated with industry-government laboratory partnerships pose a different set of challenges were not covered in this workshop.
 

Background and References
Recent discussions and hearings on the Bayh-Dole Act, and the increasing importance of industry-university collaborations to promote U.S. innovation, have generated a great deal of interest in ways to develop long-term relationships between industry and university partners that will be beneficial for the partners as well as the U.S. economy. Most of the recent reports such as the Council on Competitiveness report Innovate America , the National Academies’ reports Rising Above the Gathering Storm , and Is America Falling off the Flat Earth? have emphasized the importance of innovation for the future of the U.S. economy. They all also agree on the fact that the U.S. has a significant advantage with its world-leading university research enterprise; however, more effective partnerships are needed between universities and industry to convert innovations into products and economic growth. This is again emphasized in the most recent report of the National Science Board, A Companion to Science and Engineering Indicators - 2008 . One of its recommendations is - “Industry, government and the academic sector, and professional organizations should take action to encourage greater intellectual interchange between industry and academia”. However, they also recognize that intellectual property issues remain as one of the major hurdles to enhancing such interactions and expanding partnerships.
 
Several efforts have already been made to address these issues. The National Academies’ Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable (GUIRR) has established a University-Industry Demonstration Project (UIDP) “to develop national acceptance of general principles governing intellectual property negotiations between U.S. universities and industry, thereby allowing the once-healthy relationship between education/training and commercial/economic development to reestablish itself in the U.S.”
 

A recent workshop organized by Miller and Wrighton on Sustaining America’s Competitive Edge emphasized the importance of teamwork and enhancing a strong partnership between academia and industry, and specifically recommended that “Universities and industry should focus primarily on moving innovative discoveries towards creation of commercial products, and less on near term financial gains to the university, while providing equitable sharing of rewards stemming from major commercial successes”. In addition, “It is also recommended that industry leaders and academic leaders convene to identify specific steps that can be taken to optimize relationships that will catalyze the pace of transfer of discovery to innovative products from fundamental research.”
 
 

1. Innovate America, Council on Competitiveness, December 2004, Washington, DC
2. Rising Above the Gathering Storm, The national Academies, February 2006, Washington, DC
3. Is America Falling off the Flat Earth?, N.R. Augustine,The National Academies,December 2007, Washington, DC
4. Research and development: Essential Foundation for U.S. Competitiveness in a Global Economy, A Companion to Science and Engineering Indicators – 2008, National Science Board, January 2008, Washington, DC
5. University-Industry Demonstration Project, http://www7.nationalacademies.org/guirr/CURRENT_IP.html , Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable, The National Academies, Washington, DC
6. Sustaining America’s Competitive Edge, A Workshop Report, J.A. Miller and M.S. Wrighton, http://enhancinginnovation.wustl.edu/, December 2006.

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