The growth of university–industry research collaboration in the past fifteen years has been well documented. Despite long running debates concerning the ownership and finance of such collaboration, however, there have been few detailed studies of the contractual terms under which such collaboration takes place. This article, based on examination of several hundred ‘live’ contracts and associated correspondence in five UK universities, highlights several commonly used clauses which – if exposed to literal legal interpretation – could prove problematic. Although the work is necessarily based on the UK experience, it is likely that the issues raised will have much wider applicability.
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Work reported In this article took place under a grant, held by the authors, under the Intellectual Property Programme jointly supported by the Economic and Social Research Council, Department of Trade and Industry and Intellectual Property Institute (Grant Ref L325253023). Our grateful thanks are extended to each of the sponsoring bodies.
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