Assessment of the licensing and patenting practices of UK's leading medical research institutions

The request was successful.

Dear University of Manchester,

The FOI request below is being filed on behalf of UAEM-UK. Please note that the answers to these questions will be used to determine the university’s score in the forthcoming Global Health Ranking of leading UK universities by Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) UK.
We encourage you to read this background briefing before compiling your response:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GMzH...

Thank you very much for your time & best wishes,
Aydin Koksal - Universities Allied for Essential Medicines UK

START FOI

For the purpose of clarity, please adhere to the following definitions when answering these questions:

Definitions

Low and middle income country: A country that is defined as ‘low’, ‘lower-middle’ and ‘upper-middle’ income by the World Bank for the year 2018. Income status defined by GNI per capita.
Source: World bank, available online [https://tinyurl.com/jr6s6fm]

Patent: A form of intellectual property (IP) rights protection, whereby a government grants to the inventor, the right to stop others from making, using or selling the product without their permission for a limited period.
Source: Upcouncil, available online [https://www.upcounsel.com/copyright-trad...

Licence: Contracts that transfer IP rights from the owner of the rights to a third party for use.
Source: Upcouncil, available online [https://www.upcounsel.com/copyright-trad...

Exclusive Licence: A licence that allows only the named licensee to exploit the relevant IP rights, the licensor is also excluded from exploiting these IP rights.
Source: TaylorWessing, available online [https://united-kingdom.taylorwessing.com...

Non-Exclusive Licence: A licence that grants any number of licensees to exploit the IP.
Source: TaylorWessing, available online [https://united-kingdom.taylorwessing.com...

Health Technology: ‘Health technology as defined by the WHO: “A health technology is the application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of lives.’ Source: WHO, available online [http://www.who.int/health-technology-ass...

Q1. Has the university committed to licensing its medical discoveries in ways that promote access and affordability in Low- and Middle- Income Countries? If yes, please provide a link or PDF to the relevant policy document.

Q2. Please provide an Excel spreadsheet with headings as displayed below with all the health technologies LICENSED by the university in the past year AND specify which countries they were licensed in AND specify whether they are exclusive or non-exclusive licenses.

Health Technology Licensed | Country of Licensing | Type of License (Exclusive or Non-Exclusive)

Q3. Please provide an Excel spreadsheet with all the health technologies PATENTED by the university in the past year AND specify which countries they were patented in.

Q4.Has the university shared its best practices for promoting access to medicines through non-exclusive licensing by carrying out any of the following activities?
❏ Contributed sample clauses to the AUTM Global Health Toolkit
❏ Published an article, guidance, or other literature on access licensing practices
❏ Formally presented on access licensing practices at an academic or professional event, or at another university
❏ Informally shared or discussed access licensing practices with administrators at other universities
❏ Other
❏ None
(Tick as appropriate)

Q5. What actions has the technology transfer office (TTO) undertaken in the past year to improve access to the technologies they license in low- and middle-income settings?

END FOI

Yours faithfully,

Aydin Koksal

MTRS FOIA, University of Manchester

Dear Aydin,

I am writing to acknowledge your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 received by The University of Manchester today, our reference as per the subject line.

The University will respond to your request within 20 working days.

Kind regards

Sharon

Sharon Glen | Information Officer | Information Governance Office | Directorate of Compliance and Risk |Professional Services | G6 Christie Building | The University of Manchester | Oxford Road | Manchester | M13 9PL | Tel +44(0) 161 306 7549| www.manchester.ac.uk

We are all responsible for protecting personal data held by the University, including who we share that data with. Stop and think before you send your email.  For further guidance see: www.dataprotection.manchester.ac.uk

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MTRS FOIA, University of Manchester

Good morning Aydin,

I have been asked to seek clarification from you in respect of question 2 of your request.

When you say "which countries they were licensed in" do you mean the territories that we’ve granted rights for or do you mean the country in which the HQ of the licensee resides?

We will stop the clock on this request until we have received the necessary clarification. The 20 working day timescale will begin again once we have received clarification. If we do not receive clarification within 60 days the request will be closed.

Kind regards

Sharon

Sharon Glen | Information Officer | Information Governance Office | Directorate of Compliance and Risk |Professional Services | G6 Christie Building | The University of Manchester | Oxford Road | Manchester | M13 9PL | Tel +44(0) 161 306 7549| www.manchester.ac.uk

We are all responsible for protecting personal data held by the University, including who we share that data with. Stop and think before you send your email.  For further guidance see: www.dataprotection.manchester.ac.uk

Confidentiality and Legal Privilege: The contents of this email and its attachment(s) are confidential to the intended recipient and may be legally privileged. It may not be disclosed, copied, forwarded, used or relied upon by any person other than the intended addressee. If you believe that you have received the email and its attachment(s) in error, you must not take any action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone. Please respond to the sender and delete this email and its attachment(s) from your system.

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Dear Sharon,

Thank you for your inquiry.
We are interested in the territories that you have granted the rights for please.

Yours sincerely,
Aydin Koksal

MTRS FOIA, University of Manchester

Hi Aydin,

Thank you for providing this clarification. I will forward on to the department holding the information. The new deadline for your request will be 17 December 2018 i.e. 20 working days from receipt of clarification.

Kind regards

Sharon

Sharon Glen | Information Officer | Information Governance Office | Directorate of Compliance and Risk |Professional Services | G6 Christie Building | The University of Manchester | Oxford Road | Manchester | M13 9PL | Tel +44(0) 161 306 7549| www.manchester.ac.uk

We are all responsible for protecting personal data held by the University, including who we share that data with. Stop and think before you send your email.  For further guidance see: www.dataprotection.manchester.ac.uk

Confidentiality and Legal Privilege: The contents of this email and its attachment(s) are confidential to the intended recipient and may be legally privileged. It may not be disclosed, copied, forwarded, used or relied upon by any person other than the intended addressee. If you believe that you have received the email and its attachment(s) in error, you must not take any action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone. Please respond to the sender and delete this email and its attachment(s) from your system.

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MTRS FOIA, University of Manchester

3 Attachments

Dear Aydin,

 

Thank you for your clarified request for information received by The
University of Manchester on 19 November 2018 which was as follows:

 

Q1. Has the university committed to licensing its medical discoveries in
ways that promote access and affordability in Low- and Middle- Income
Countries? If yes, please provide a link or PDF to the relevant policy
document.

 

Q2. Please provide an Excel spreadsheet with headings as displayed below
with all the health technologies LICENSED by the university in the past
year AND specify which countries they were licensed in AND specify whether
they are exclusive or non-exclusive licenses. We are interested in the
territories that you have granted the rights for please.

 

Q3. Please provide an Excel spreadsheet with all the health technologies
PATENTED by the university in the past year AND specify which countries
they were patented in.

 

Q4.Has the university shared its best practices for promoting access to
medicines through non-exclusive licensing by carrying out any of the
following activities?

❏          Contributed sample clauses to the AUTM Global Health Toolkit

❏          Published an article,  guidance, or other literature on access
licensing practices

❏          Formally presented on access licensing practices at an academic
or professional event, or at another university

❏          Informally shared or discussed access licensing practices with
administrators at other universities

❏          Other

❏          None

(Tick as appropriate)

 

Q5. What actions has the technology transfer office (TTO) undertaken in
the past year to improve access to the technologies they license in low-
and middle-income settings?

 

The University has now considered your request and the information you are
seeking can be found below.

 

1.       Yes, it is published as our Humanitarian IP Commercialisation
Policy (Appendix E p.43 of The University of Manchester’s Intellectual
Property Policy);
[1]http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuIn....

2.       Please find the data attached on the spread-sheet entitled “FOI
018-440 LICENCES”.

3.       Please find the data attached on the spread-sheet entitled “FOI
018-440 PATENTS”.

 

NB: Please see the following advice provided by The University of
Manchester Innovation Group in relation to the “Country of Origin”
information within these spread-sheets.

 

For licences, “the world” means that the rights pertaining to the licence
(e.g. the right to manufacture the product) can be granted in any country
in the world, there are no territorial limitations. There are 2 tabs to
the spreadsheet “FOI 018-440 LICENCES”; the second tab labelled C2G refers
to Express IP licences which are licences for technology downloadable via
the click2go online licensing platform and via Amazon.   

 

For patents, the country of origin is linked to the way that the process
of patenting works.  First of all a patent application is filed in the UK
only (priority filing), then 12 months after that, it goes to PCT (Patent
Convention Treaty) stage which grants temporary rights worldwide (or at
least in the 152 states which have signed up to the PCT).  It is 30 months
after the initial patent filing when a decision is made as to which
territories to maintain patent protection in (called National Phase).  So
the 3 tabs on the spread-sheet “FOI 018-440 PATENTS” represent the
priority filings, PCTs and National Phase patents in the year. 

 

4.       Yes, we have informally shared or discussed access licensing
practices with administrators at other universities.

5.       No specific actions have been undertaken in the past year. We
promote a substantial amount of our IP portfolio on our website so it is
accessible worldwide.  All medtech innovations are promoted via free
social media platforms.  A number of the express licenses are downloadable
free of charge worldwide for research purposes.  

 

I trust this information is of assistance.

 

Kind regards

 

Sharon

 

Sharon Glen | Information Officer | Information Governance Office |
Directorate of Compliance and Risk |Professional Services | G6 Christie
Building | The University of Manchester | Oxford Road | Manchester | M13
9PL | Tel +44(0) 161 306 7549| [2]www.manchester.ac.uk

[3]data_matters_logo2-(3)

We are all responsible for protecting personal data held by the
University, including who we share that data with. Stop and think before
you send your email.  For further guidance see:
[4]www.dataprotection.manchester.ac.uk

 

Confidentiality and Legal Privilege: The contents of this email and its
attachment(s) are confidential to the intended recipient and may be
legally privileged. It may not be disclosed, copied, forwarded, used or
relied upon by any person other than the intended addressee. If you
believe that you have received the email and its attachment(s) in error,
you must not take any action based on them, nor must you copy or show them
to anyone. Please respond to the sender and delete this email and its
attachment(s) from your system.

 

References

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