by Giuliana Miglierini
Patents represent a fundamental element supporting the improvement of the EU’s competitiveness in the global scenario, a central political target for the action of the new European Commission. Patenting is essential to protect intellectual property (IP) at the base of the development of a new product, and it represents a key step of the product lifecycle in the pharmaceutical, biotech, med-tech sectors and more extensively in life sciences and medicine.
The new business models typical of the new century have transferred to the academics the early steps of R&D. The so-produced IP is then often licensed, still with some challenge, to companies or investors interested in continuing clinical development to finally reach the market with new medicines and other health products.
A recent report from the European Patent Office (EPO) has addressed the role that the universities play in patenting and innovation. The analysis considered 1,203 European universities (about one-third of all institutions listed in the European Tertiary Education Register database) that filed at least one European patent (EP) application in the years 2000 – 2020. Selected universities were distributed between 37 countries, with higher concentrations in France (18%), Germany (16%), UK (11%) and Italy (7%). We summarise the main findings of the report.
Academic patents in life sciences are over-represented
The analysis considered European patent applications in the period 2000-2019 directly filed by universities, as well as indirect applications including university-affiliated researchers among the inventors.
The share of academic patents increased from 6.2% in 2000 to 10.2% in 2019. Much more pronounced was the increase in direct patenting (24% vs 45%, respectively), due to the implementation of new IP policies by the universities.
Looking more in detail at the distribution of EP academic patents in the period 2000 – 2020 in 35 technology fields and sectors (according to the WIPO’s classification), the medicine and biology sectors appear to attract the higher interest of academic researchers. Taking into consideration the relative specialisation index for each field compared to total EP filings (a value over one signifies that academic patents are over-represented in that field), the pharmaceutical sector leads the ranking (14.32%), followed by biotechnology (13.15%) and medical technology (7.24%). Other very important classes of academic patents with applications also in life sciences are organic fine chemistry (6.11%), measurement (6.00%) and analysis of biological materials (5.07%). Over-representation of academic patents also refers to semiconductors (2.62%), macromolecular chemistry and polymers (2.37%) and microstructures and nanotechnology (0.92%). The sectors of computer technology (4.61%) and digital communication (3.01%) also attract interest, as well as optics (2.26%) and chemical engineering (3.45%).
The EPO report also analyses the specialisation rate of universities. A clear trend can be identified showing specialisation of groups of universities in the pharmaceutical field (24,944 academic patents filed in total) and biotechnology (22,870 academic patents). Data also show that universities filing larger amount of patents are often specialised in science-based sectors, i.e. pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, nanotechnologies, audio-visual technologies or telecommunications.
The importance of basic research
The EPO report on academic patenting also sheds new light on the importance of basic research compared to the applied one. Results from basic research can often appear not to have immediate interest and application. On the other hand, the accumulation of results from decades of basic research may turn critical for the rapid development of new, breakthrough technologies. It was the case, for example, in the development of mRNA technologies during the Covid pandemic.
The so-called Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) identified by the European Commission are other critical areas of interest for basic research to guide the development of the next generation of science-driven technologies expected to reach the market. KETs also include biotechnologies, as well as nanotechnology, photonics and advanced material science.
The distribution of patents among European universities
While only five countries account for more than half of the considered academic patents, some other smaller countries (i.e.Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, Finland, and Austria) also play a significant role compared to the average.
According to the report, 62% of universities filed less than 1 patent application per year on average in the period considered. This is typically referred to smaller universities specialised in engineering and related fields. Half of all patent applications in the period 2000-2020 came from only 5% of universities (with more than 250 applications each). The leading ones for filed patent applications are the Technische Universität München (D), followed by the Université Grenoble Alpes (F) and the Oxford University (UK).
Larger universities are the only ones specialised in science-based research fields, according to the report. They have internal Knowledge Transfer Offices (KTOs) and often directly file patents, thus also generating relevant revenues from the transfer of the IP to interested companies or investors. Furthermore, universities localised in the more industrialised European regions are more prone to academic patenting, as it is easier to generate opportunities for collaboration and technology transfer.
Indirect patent applications filed in 2015-2019 accounted for between 40% and 70% in most countries. In the great majority of cases (76%), the applicant was based in the same country as the academic inventor’s university. Applicants from other European countries represented 15%, and 11% when referred to the EU-27 only.
Larger companies are mostly contributing to indirect applications (about 80% in years 2015-2019), before SMEs (33%) and startups (12%). The report indicates that multinational companies are sourcing academic inventions mainly from their headquarters countries. The top universities by number of startups with academic patent applications at the EPO include ETH Zurich (CH), Cambridge University (UK) and Lund University (SE).
Different model to protect academic inventions
The EPO report mentions the importance the new models of ownership of academic inventions had in increasing the rate of direct filing of patent applications. This trend was also supported by legislative reforms, such as the abolition of the professor’s privilege, but with significant differences across countries.
While some of the leading ones (Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium and Germany) saw a decrease in the overall number of academic patents per researcher, the opposite occurred for example in Sweden and other Nordic countries, where only a small proportion of academic patents is directly filed by the universities. Furthermore, in France (nearly 80%), Belgium (45%) and Italy (39%) more than one-third of direct applications see the presence of co-applicants.
This trend acknowledges the increasing importance of research collaborations, partnerships and framework agreements for IP protection. According to EPO, co-applications represented 36% of all EP applications filed by universities in 2015-2019. In France, for example, co-applicants are often large public research organisations such as the CNRS and INSERM. The same applies to regular co-applicants in Germany (the Fraunhofer and Max Planck Institutes), Belgium (IMEC, VIB), Spain (CSIC) and Italy (CNR). Research hospitals and foundations are also often encountered as co-applicants in directly filed patent applications.