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Karen Maex, member of EIT’s governing board
EIT asks knowledge and innovation communities to set their own IP strategies
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) will give the knowledge and innovation communities (KICs) that it helps fund the right to set their own intellectual property (IP) regimes, so long as they are consistent with its goal of increasing the innovation capacity of Europe.
eIQ Action Points – Setting IP regimes in EIT knowledge and innovation communities
The EIT has been formed to help Europe make a better job of exploiting its research for commercial and social gain. The idea is to improve Europe’s innovation capacity, reduce the time it takes to translate research into industrial exploitation, increase entrepreneurship and help make research workers more mobile.
Martin Schuurmans, chairman of the governing board, is taking an energetic approach to its start-up phase. He is also insisting that each proposal to form a KIC includes a business plan, a set of goals, an IP policy, and that it appoints a CEO-like figure to drive the organisation.
According to Karen Maex, a member of the EIT’s governing board who has been working on its IP strategy, KICs are free to propose an IP regime that works for their goals and sector, so long as it also aligns with the EIT’s overall goals. The EIT’s policy goals also include ensuring that the work done within KICs can be widely exploited, within the EU and beyond.
“We want to let each KIC define its IP policy as it is being formed. They should have an IP board and be able to show how their IP policy meets their goals,” she said. Each KIC will also need to outline the composition of its IP board and how it will make decisions, show how it plans to manage IP exploitation, and define a way to deal with any IP issues that emerge as people or organisations join or leave the KIC.
The EIT does not expect to restrict the exploitation of the KICs’ IP to companies or organisations within the EU.
“KICs can negotiate in good faith to license IP with anyone, if it helps to meet the business goals of the KICs and increase the competitiveness of the EU,” Maex said.
Because the EIT is developing so quickly, with the first call for proposals to form a KIC closing on 27 August, and the results due to be confirmed before Christmas, much of the detail of its operation remains in a state of flux.
“We do not have specific proposals for the KICs yet,” she said. “But if [the IP policy proposed] is convincing that it will meet the goals of the KIC, then let’s do it. We should also be prepared to think along new lines [such as open access science and open source] where it is relevant and fair.”
Maex points out that there are many models of academic/industrial collaboration which each have an appropriate IP policy, and gave three examples.
In one model, collaboration could be arranged as a large pool of researchers who work in a collaborative way. In this case each needs access rights to the work of all the others.
In a second model, a collaboration could be formed by a group of partners who each bring background knowledge to the project and then jointly create new IP by integrating that knowledge. In this case, defining and valuing the background knowledge that each contributes is as important as defining rights to the resultant IP. [Werner Frohling, head of corporate patents at Volvo Technology, has written in more detail about IP’s role in open innovation here.]
Maex has personal experience of the third model that she lists, through her role as a Fellow at IMEC, the nearby inter-university micro- and nano-electronics research centre. IMEC has used this model very successfully to enable competitors in the semiconductor industry to share the costs of critical pre-competitive research. Under the model, which is noted for its flexibility, competitors get a lot of credit for the background knowledge that they bring to the collaboration. The resultant basic science is shared, although members of the collaboration can contract with IMEC to further develop it for competitive use.
“What is important is that there is a collaboration between academia, the research centre and industrial competitors working pre-competitively to create new technologies and markets. Once the technology moves into development the companies become competitors again.”
Although Europe’s many schemes to foster academic/industrial collaborations mean that a number of relevant IP regimes have already been developed and applied, the EIT does not plan to create a ‘toolkit’ of approved IP regimes from which KICs should choose at this point in time.
“You have to be careful here. Established models are fine, but they can be restrictive. We have to allow novelty in IP models as well,” she said, such as the open source approaches that have become popular in the development of some computer code. “We need to see whether, in some areas, a more open-access and innovative approach could work.”Karen Maex
Member of the governing board, the EITkaren.maex@rec.kuleuven.be
eIQ Action Points
- The EIT is developing very rapidly, so expect policies to change rapidly as well
- The purpose of the EIT is to improve Europe’s competitiveness and innovation, so your IP regime should reflect this
- Each KIC needs an IP board to manage knowledge transfer and IP issues, such as access rights, defining background knowledge, exploitation, disclosure, contribution, the gain or loss of members, publication and dissemination, etc
- Each KIC proposal should define the composition of the IP board, how it will make decisions, and how it will develop its IP policy
- Each KIC will be expected to licence IP to interested parties to optimise the exploitation and uptake of KIC knowledge and technologies, bearing in mind the business goals of the KIC members and the EIT’s overall goals
- Each KIC needs to define an appropriate IP regime governing the rights and obligations of researchers and students involved in mobility
- Many IP regimes already exist, in companies, research organisations, technology transfer offices and even national initiatives – choose one that is right for your KIC, and consider the suitability of novel approaches as well
- Time is pressing, so borrow what you can