A new Intellectual Property (IP) Management system is being created by 3C Research, a Bristol-based University Innovation Centre, and Murgitroyd & Company,  European Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys.

For any business or university engaged in collaborative research, negotiating the terms and conditions of intellectual property ownership and exploitation can be extremely lengthy and costly.  This new IP Management System will provide a collaborative research environment in which members can participate without fear of loss of IP, maximise the opportunity to create commercially exploitable IP and provide clarity of ownership.

This is a timely project.  The recent Lambert Report highlighted the lack of clarity over IP in research collaborations as a major barrier to business/ university collaboration and the recent Government Innovation Report highlighted the need for IP training in particular for Small/Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in order that they can make more informed decisions.  

Dr Peter Horne, CEO of 3C Research said, “Our aim is to create a much needed system for all aspects of IP, including collating and documenting background IP, implementing a lab and e-lab note book, training academic staff and commercial partners, proactively monitoring the creation of resultant IP, allocating ownership to relevant project participants and supporting SME members in licensing IP.  

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to work with Murgitroyd on this project and to draw on their extensive experience of IP management with a wide range of organisations, including large companies, universities and research institutes and associated spin out companies.  It is  our intention to make the IP Management System available to all University Innovation Centres, and other university / business research collaborations”.

3C Research

3C Research Limited was established in 2003.  It is one of five University Innovation Centres and is currently funded by the DTI for £7.62m over three years.  3C Research provides a structure for collaborative research in the areas of digital media processing and communications. 

The research programme is driven by the continuing exposure of the population to IT and the Internet, with an increasing need for access to rich information content anytime, anywhere.   3C Research is currently running  5 research projects covering large scale multimedia archiving, image rendering, advanced tool creation for animation and computer gaming and the provision of multimedia services over wireless networks.   3C Research has a range of partners including the University of Bristol, QinetiQ, HP, Thales, Toshiba, Granada and SMEs including Matrix Data and Provision.   

Murgitroyd

Muritroyd & Company is one of the largest firms of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys in Europe and has considerable range and depth of IP related expertise.  It has around 50 professional staff and about 150 staff in total, based in eight European offices located in the UK, France, Ireland and Germany, and provides a comprehensive range of IP services in these countries.  This includes for example, searches, due diligence reports, filing, prosecution, IP management and renewals services relating to Patents, Trade Marks and Designs.