Universities have traditionally been viewed as reluctant litigants. Expensive disputes are rarely good publicity (particularly for institutions that rely on public funding and charitable status). Yet in recent years a series of high-profile intellectual property disputes have called that assumption into question.

In Oxford University Innovation Ltd v Oxford Nanoimaging Ltd (2022), a dispute between Oxford University's technology transfer office and a university spin-out centred on the ownership of patent rights and whether royalties were payable. In Innovate Pharmaceuticals Ltd v University of Portsmouth (2024), the court examined allegations concerning research undertaken by the university in relation to a patented pharmaceutical product.

Now it is reported that AstraZeneca has paid $220 million (circa. £166 million) to the University of Sheffield following a patent licence dispute. Whatever the precise commercial background, the scale of the settlement demonstrates not only the potential value of university-generated IP, but also the willingness of universities to protect that value when disputes arise.

For businesses licensing university technology, these disputes highlight the increasing willingness of universities to scrutinise, protect and enforce contractual rights that may have been agreed many years earlier.

When I first started working in technology transfer, universities were rarely thought of as litigants. As a junior lawyer I spent two days a week for several years on secondment to a well-known UK university. The rationale was that it would be a relatively safe environment in which to develop practical contract drafting and negotiation skills.

It required me to understand and distil complex research, technologies and royalty structures into concise and commercially workable contracts. (There were other practical skills learned such as managing the occasional high-ego academic; I particularly remember one who was ‘affectionately’ nicknamed “Shouty Jean”, but that’s a story for another time!).

Looking back, perhaps my university secondment was not quite the safe sandbox I thought it was! Thankfully, I was well trained and taught early on that a perceived low-risk environment was no excuse for lowering professional standards. Pragmatism for a particular deal is different from letting standards slip. 

As our reputation for delivering high-quality, pragmatic advice grew, so too did the value and complexity of the matters on which we were asked to advise. Increasingly, these involved significant licensing transactions, sophisticated royalty arrangements and intellectual property with substantial commercial potential. 

The difference today is that disputes which might once have been quietly resolved are increasingly finding their way to court. Universities appear more willing than ever to enforce their rights, whether driven by financial pressures, more sophisticated technology transfer operations, or simply recognition of the commercial value of university-generated IP.

For businesses collaborating with universities, these disputes underline the importance of carefully structuring and drafting ownership rights, licensing terms and royalty arrangements from the outset. As the commercial value of university-generated IP continues to grow, the agreement signed today may still be determining the outcome of a dispute many years from now.

If your business is developing, licensing or commercialising patented technology, investing time in getting the contractual framework right at the outset is invariably cheaper than litigating over it years later.