Collaborative Resource: Intellectual Property at Imperial

What is Intellectual Property?

Intellectual Property (known as "IP"), is any intangible material, concept or other property that is the result of creativity. This can include things like patentable inventions, scientific discoveries and research results, as well as broader concepts and designs. We have included a full list of the items that Imperial considers IP in a later section of this resource.

Employees of Imperial

The Patents Act 1977 and the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, alongside any other relevant legislation, state that all forms of IP created or developed by an employee, within the normal course of their duties as an employee, belongs to their Employer. In this case, any and all IP created by Imperial staff members as part of their work at the College, is owned by Imperial.

For works completed outside of an employee’s usual duties, that have been commissioned or instructed by Imperial, the employee is required to assign the rights to any created IP to Imperial. 

Students of Imperial

Where students create IP in the course of their work or studies, they themselves will own the rights to the IP, unless:

1.   They create IP that is subject to the terms of an agreement or contract with a third party or other external party, and the terms of the agreement dictate that the IP is owned by the College or by the third party.

2.   They create new IP that builds upon existing IP already owned by Imperial, or otherwise created by Imperial employees or associates.

3.   They create IP in partnership with Imperial employees or associates.

4.   They are, or have the status of, an Imperial Employee. 

In the above exceptions, the Student will be treated the same as an Employee and will be required to assign the IP rights to Imperial. This also means they can take advantage of the Reward to Inventors Scheme, in respect of IP that generates revenue.

Associates to Imperial

Defined as other individuals who are associated with Imperial, but are not Students or Employees. This could include Visiting Researchers, Readers, Honoraries, Senior Research Investigators, or other similar roles.

Persons in these roles may be required to assign the IP rights to Imperial, as the IP will likely be generated over the course of their work with the College. Additionally, Imperial may have obligations to funding bodies that it would not be able to comply with if the College does not have the rights to the IP.

In the context of revenue generated by IP, Associates are usually treated as Employees. There are some exceptions that require special arrangements, where the individual retains employment with another organisation during their work with Imperial (e.g. Visiting Professors). This will require a case-by-case negotiation of the rights assigned to the involved parties, and for the details of revenue sharing. In the first instance, contact the Research Office as soon as possible to seek advice. This must be completed as early in the research process as possible. 

Copyright

Imperial waives its right to copyright of IP when the IP is textbooks, research publications, or other teaching materials, and states that the relevant individuals may publish these items to their own benefit. It should be noted that Imperial will be entitled to a global, royalty-free, in perpetuity license for the use of any such materials for the sole purpose of research and education at Imperial, across all media. It is the responsibility of the individual to make any prospective publisher (or similar) aware of this commitment.

All Imperial Employees, Students, and Associates must familiarise themselves with Imperial’s “Research Publications Open Access Policy”, which maintains that certain academic outputs should be available in an open source format. 

The above discretionary copyright waiver does not cover other work commissioned by Imperial, which will have its own copyright agreement. This includes copyrighted works generated via research or other commissioned activities such as computer software, databases or other materials with commercial potential.

Commercialisation of IP

The full list of IP that Imperial lays claim to when any of the previously described conditions are met includes:

• Patents
• Utility Models
• Trade and Service Marks
• Trade Names
• Rights in:
  • Domain names
  • Designs
  • Copyrights
  • Moral rights
  • Topography rights
  • Databases
  • Trade secrets
  • Works created by computer hardware or software owned or operated by Imperial
  • Works created with the aid of Imperial facilities including (by example):
    • Films
    • Photographs
    • Multimedia works
    • Typographic arrangements
    • Field and laboratory notebooks
  • Chemical or biological materials including any:
    • Organic/Inorganic element
    • Nucleotide or nucleotide sequence including DNA and RNA sequences
    • Gene
    • Vector or construct including plasmids, phages or viruses
    • Host organisms including bacteria, fungi, algae, protozoa and hybridomas
    • Eukaryotic or prokaryotic cell lines or expression systems, or any development strain or product of that cell line or expression system
    • Protein including any peptide or amino acid sequence
    • Enzyme
    • Antibody or protein conferring targeting properties
    • Any fragment of a protein or peptide enzyme or antibody
    • Drug or pro-drug
    • Assay or reagent
    • Any other genetic material or micro-organism
    • Data for the derivation of molecular structures including NMR spectra, X-ray diffraction patterns and other primary experimental information
    • Assignments and other calculations required for determination of the structure, and co-ordinates of the derived molecular structure
    • Transgenic animal
  • Confidential information and/or know-how

Imperial aims to incentivize innovation and spinouts by licensing technologies and IPs owned by the College to companies that are able to maximise the real-world potential and societal impact of the innovation.

Where Imperial considers an innovation to have commercial potential, the College will seek out and negotiate commercial terms and contracts, alongside the application for patents and other protective registrations (at Imperial’s own expense). This falls under Imperial’s own commercialisation company, Imperial College Innovations Ltd, which is responsible for the securing of legal agreements and for the licensing and creation of spinouts.

Once a spinout has been successful and has begun generating revenue, the original innovators will be eligible for a cut of said revenue as part of the Reward to Innovators Scheme.

Record Keeping in IP

Any individual who creates or works on IP should keep clear and retrievable records of the basis and development of said IP. All records should be in readily accessible formats and stored securely. Not only does this support the obligations of good research practice, but it will also aid in securing any claim to an IP.

All individuals engaged in research at Imperial must abide by Imperial’s Guidelines for Proper Scientific Conduct in Research Policy.

Confidentiality

N.B. It is a condition of employment/affiliation that all individuals must familiarize themselves with, and uphold, Imperial Data Protection & Confidentiality policies regarding any and all sensitive data they interact with during their work.

In the context of IP development and research, employees and other affiliates will be subject to either a Confidential Disclosure Agreement (CDA) and/or a Research Contract. As such, all confidential or sensitive information received under these contracts must be held confidentially and only disclosed to authorised individuals (e.g. other members of the research team, but only those stated in the relevant agreement or contract). Individuals also have some responsibility over how data is handled within the relevant team members – it is recommended that you don’t release confidential data to team members who do not adhere to Imperial’s Data Protection & Confidentiality policies, where it can be avoided. If you have concerns about how other team members are handling sensitive or confidential materials, you should report your concerns to your Supervisor (or other relevant authority such as a PI/CI etc.). 

The Imperial Name, Brand and Logos

The Imperial College Secretary is responsible for overseeing the use of the Imperial brand and associated items. You can check the details of this in Imperial’s Financial Regulations Pt 1.

Interpretation

In the event of any disagreement between an individual and Imperial on the subjects of the IP Policy, which cannot be resolved by discussion, the dispute may be referred to the Director of the Research Office by either party.

Contact

IP cases at Imperial are largely handled by Enterprise. You can reach the Enterprise team here. 

Further Reading

You can access the full Intellectual Property Policy, and other useful policies and resources at these links:

Imperial Intellectual Property Policy

Imperial Research Publications Open Access Policy

Imperial Guidelines for Proper Scientific Conduct in Research Policy

Imperial Financial Regulations (Feb 2024)

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