Topic Hub: Intellectual Property
Knowledge Exchange UK welcomes the launch of the Intellectual Property Office’s new Knowledge Asset Management Hub, a practical resource designed to help universities and research organisations identify, protect and commercialise their intellectual property and wider knowledge assets.
The Hub was announced by IPO Chief Executive Adam Williams at the Knowledge Exchange UK Conference 2026 in Newport, Wales. It brings together guidance, tools and resources for technology transfer offices, knowledge exchange professionals, research managers and institutional leaders working across the research commercialisation lifecycle.
The Knowledge Asset Management Hub includes support across four key areas:
- institutional IP strategy guidance to help universities and research organisations develop and implement IP strategies and policies
- project-level IP risk and opportunity tools to help teams manage IP considerations within individual research projects
- patent data analysis and IP due diligence resources to support licensing, spin-out formation and investment decisions
- a Knowledge Asset Management Toolkit supporting strategic and operational management of knowledge assets
Dr Stuart Wilkinson, CEO of Knowledge Exchange UK, said:
“The Knowledge Asset Management Hub is a timely and practical addition to the knowledge exchange landscape from the UK Intellectual Property Office. Shaped with direct input from practitioners, it provides guidance, tools, and data to support institutions in managing and commercialising IP.
“Knowledge Exchange UK was pleased to support its development, and we see it as an important shared resource for the ecosystem — helping to unlock greater value from the UK’s world-leading research base.”
The Hub has been developed through engagement with the university and knowledge exchange community, including surveys and workshops with technology transfer professionals, knowledge exchange practitioners and research managers from across the UK.
Knowledge Exchange UK encourages members, partners and colleagues across the sector to explore the new resource and consider how it can support institutional approaches to knowledge asset management, IP strategy and commercialisation.
This article draws on information first published by the UK Intellectual Property Office on the news article “IPO launches Knowledge Asset Management Hub“.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England (NHSE), with the support of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), updated the NHS Intellectual Property (IP) guidance for England. This publication replaced the 2002 guidance, and we sought to raise awareness and understanding of the new guidance in this webinar. We gave an overview of the principles and provided practical, real-life insights.
This webinar was open to all; however, it was primarily aimed at staff involved in operationalising IP arrangements from an NHS, TTO, and research perspective who required technical, detailed understanding of the guidance.
Please find below the recording, presentation and useful links.
Useful links:
- IP guidance for the NHS – KEUK Webinar 03.12.25 A – Fill in form
- Intellectual property (IP) guidance for the NHS in England – GOV.UK
- IP Guidance Evaluation: Interested Participants
- Medipex: Support at every stage
- Intellectual Property Guidance for the NHS in England
- IP guidance for the NHS – KEUK webinar 03.12.25 B
Additional webinars:
- Innovators, Friday 5 December, 12:30-13:30: Register here
- Organisations providing or commissioning NHS services Webinar 3, Thursday 11 December, 13:00-14:00: Register here
This practical session with IP expert Paul Roscoe (Appleyard Lees) explored how to protect AI inventions effectively.
Attendees explored what it takes to secure protection for AI-driven technologies through real-world scenarios — including autonomy stacks in self-driving vehicles and a computer vision system.
The session provided clear insights into what can (and can’t) be patented, helping attendees support researchers navigating the evolving landscape of AI intellectual property protection.
Speakers:
- Tamsin Mann – Associate Director Sector Engagement, Knowledge Exchange UK
- Paul Roscoe – Partner, Appleyard Lees IP LLP
Appleyard Lees
Appleyard Lees is a leading intellectual property law firm, with almost 80 patent and trademark attorneys and IP solicitors. It supports clients from a broad range of industries, including chemistry, life sciences, electronics and software, engineering, and physics. Its UK and overseas client roster include start-ups and scale ups, SMEs, University spin-outs, as well as multi-national companies.
Please find below the recording and presentation:
Explore the latest trends in green innovation and technology with Appleyard Lees, a leading intellectual property firm. In this webinar, we discussed their 2024 Inside Green Innovation: Progress Report, offering in-depth analysis of advancements in renewable energy, materials recycling, sustainable food production, and transport.
Key topics included:
- Breakthroughs in lithium-ion battery recycling
- Next-generation electric vehicle technology
- CRISPR-enabled crop innovation and the challenges it faces
If you missed the live session, you can now access all the key insights, data, and discussions on global sustainability progress that are driving innovations in countries, commerce, and the planet.
Speakers:
- Arnie King – SVB Community of Practice Coordinator, Knowledge Exchange UK
- Paul Beynon – Partner, Appleyard Lees
- David Jasiewicz – Associate, Appleyard Lees
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Appleyard Lees:
Appleyard Lees: Appleyard Lees is a leading intellectual property law firm, with over 70 patent and trademark attorneys and IP solicitors. It supports clients from a broad range of industries, including chemistry, life sciences, electronics and software, engineering, and physics. Its UK and overseas client roster include start-ups and scale ups, SMEs, University spin-outs, as well as multi-national companies.
Please find below the recording, presentations and useful links
The myths surrounding Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) patentability had long been uncertain, particularly in the context of universities and medical research innovations.
Diego Black addressed some of these myths about patenting AI and provided useful insights for tech transfer officers and laboratory-based innovators.
He explored which types of software inventions, including AI in a life sciences setting, could be patented and discussed the characteristics that made an AI invention more likely to be patentable.
Diego answered specific questions, such as:
- Were some AI inventions intrinsically more patentable than others?
- How “AI friendly” was the European Patent Office?
- How could someone determine if their Medical AI invention was patentable?
Speakers:
- Tamsin Mann – Head of Policy and Governance, Knowledge Exchange UK
- Dr Diego Black – Partner & Patent Attorney, Withers & Rogers
- Dr Helen Henderson – Partner & Patent Attorney, Withers & Rogers
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Withers & Rogers:
Withers & Rogers is one of Europe’s largest dedicated intellectual property law firms, with offices across the UK, Paris and Munich. Our clients include renowned, innovative organisations from multinational corporations through to universities and start-ups from across the globe.
We offer a comprehensive service extending to both securing IP rights (such as patents, trade mark, and design registrations) and advising on their exploitation and enforcement. We also provide proactive support functions that help our clients keep track of their IP, stay on top of its maintenance and in control of costs. Our dedicated Higher Education sector team focuses on providing bespoke services and added value for our University clients.
Recognition of the strategic importance of intellectual property is growing rapidly. To help our clients make the most of their creativity, we build strategies that embrace critical areas including innovation culture, due diligence and invention management.
Please find below the recording, presentations and useful links
PraxisAuril is working with the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) on the crucial update of the Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) Guide. Originally launched in 2011, this guide is being revised and will be renamed the Knowledge Asset Management (KAM) Guide to better reflect its focus on the assets created through university research and innovation.
PraxisAuril’s involvement in the initial draft of the IAM Guide underscores our commitment to advancing intellectual property (IP) and knowledge assets, which are vital for fostering innovation within universities and businesses. This updated KAM Guide aims to enhance how universities and research organisations manage these assets, ultimately supporting the positive impacts of research.
To ensure that the revised guide meets the needs of our members and the sector, the IPO is hosting a series of workshops. These workshops offer a valuable opportunity for you to share your insights and help shape a resource that will benefit the entire sector. During these sessions, your input will be requested on various aspects of the updated guidance, such as:
- What information you would find most useful concerning knowledge assets, IP and IP Rights?
- How the guide can support you to identify, protect, manage and use knowledge assets effectively? How can this support careers, research, innovation, collaboration, commercialisation and wider interaction with business?
- Is anything missing from the guide?
To register your interest in attending one of the workshops please enter your details on the Knowledge Asset Management Guide’s Citizen Space Survey: https://ipoconsultations.citizenspace.com/ipo/eac8d557/
The KAM Guide workshops will be hosted on:
- Monday 16 September 10:00 – 12:00
- Tuesday 17 September 10:00 – 12:00
- Monday 23 September 10:00 – 12:00
- Tuesday 24 September 10:00 – 12:00
- Monday 30 September 10:00 – 12:00
- Tuesday 1 October 10:00 – 12:00
For those that cannot attend a workshop or would also like to put forward their views separately, the IPO has opened a digital-only section to the survey, designed to provide additional opportunities to contribute.
Research England has released a report detailing IP-related and commercialisation activities submitted as part of the HE-BCI survey for the academic year 2019/20. A similar report was published in 2020 (commenting on 2018/19 data) and this report provides an update and considers the possible effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the HE sector. The main focus of the report is on IP income, patents and spin-outs in England since these categories continue to be the focus of attention by funders and policy makers for economic and social renewal and growth.
As indicated in the report’s introduction, the effects of the pandemic will be more fully represented in future reporting periods. It is also important to note that there is a natural time-lag between IP disclosure and any commercialisation outcome, and this should be borne in mind when considering the data. It remains to be seen how this input/output lag is affected by the lockdown and the enforced working from home that affected both public and private sector organisations during much of 2020 and 2021. Some of the evidence for that will be found in the work of the University Commercialisation Innovation unit, led by Tomas Coates Ulrichsen at University of Cambridge, which takes the temperature of university-business collaboration during and post-pandemic (for more information visit https://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/research/uci-policy-unit/projects/).
The report concludes with international comparisons with similar data collected in the US by the AUTM for the financial year 2019. This shows that the UK is “broadly comparable with to the US on key measures of commercialisation performance” (Hamish McAlpine, Research England). PraxisAuril members are well-versed in the challenges of demonstrating ‘good’ numbers when it comes to commercialisation activities, particularly when it comes to new company creation. This data demonstrates that, when research resource is taken into account, the UK and US are not as far apart as the commentary suggests. For further reflections on the role of metrics in international technology transfer discussions, visit TenU’s blog (https://ten-u.org/news/the-value-and-limitations-of-core-tech-transfer-metrics).
The HE-BCI data itself will be the subject of a review in 2022. PraxisAuril will be seeking ways to contribute members’ views into that work.
Research England’s report ‘An Update on IP-Related and Commercialisation Activities in England in 2019/20’ can be downloaded from the UKRI website https://www.ukri.org/publications/ip-related-and-commercialisation-activities-in-england-in-2019-20/.
Knowledge and innovation are central to the UK’s future productivity and growth. They are a key focus of the government’s Industrial Strategy. These strengths are apparent in the public sector as well as the private sector, where research has highlighted a large growth in the value of the UK public sector’s knowledge assets. Work undertaken as part of the Balance Sheet Review, launched at Autumn Budget 2017 and tasked with getting better value from government’s wide range of assets and liabilities, brought to light the scale and variety of knowledge assets held by the public sector. Engagement with experts from across government and the wider public sector, including universities, revealed examples of ground-breaking innovations that were delivering huge public benefits, including financial returns for government.
The work also found that a range of barriers stand in the way of enterprising public servants and agencies who want to realise the full impact of their innovations. This report makes a series of recommendations for how to overcome these barriers and help to unlock the full value of public sector knowledge assets. They would involve a radical transformation in the way that government manages its knowledge assets, increasing its visibility across the public sector and ensuring that the right expertise is deployed to maximise the social, economic and financial returns on these important intangible assets.
PraxisUnico would like to congratulate Oxford University Innovation, which was named ‘Tech Transfer unit of the year’ in the annual GUVenturing awards ceremony in London last night (23rd May), and PraxisUnico Advocacy Committee member Tony Raven who was awarded a lifetime achievement award.
The GUV awards took place as part of the Global Corporate Venturing symposium and marks the second time that the GCV event has brought university venturing together with the corporate venturing industry, enabling discussions on “how to enhance innovation through collaboration”.
Representing the UK’s university sector speakers are several PraxisUnico/AURIL expert practitioners, who will share the approach their offices have taken to be amongst the best at what they do. In addition to discussing macro challenges – particularly Brexit – the UK’s tech transfer and university sector faces.
Gregg Bayes-Brown, former editor at GUV and now Marketing & Communications Manager at Oxford University Innovation will be talking about GUV’s international benchmarking report, comparing approaches and impact of university venturing funds at the PraxisUnico conference 14-16th June in Sheffield. The report looks at models of university venture funds which have been proposed as an answer to the funding gap for university spinouts.
Global Corporate Venturing is the dedicated news and data service for the in-house venture capital units of businesses. Global University Venturing is a monthly magazine and website written for and about universities taking stakes in the spinout companies of staff and students. Both are published by Mawsonia Ltd. Full details of the symposium and the awards can be found at http://gcvsymposium.com/
UK Parliament has today published its report on the inquiry into ‘Managing IP and Technology Transfer’ conducted by the House of Commons Science & Technology Select Committee. PraxisUnico welcomes the Committee’s report and its headline conclusion that increased investment in Research and Development (R&D) by business is crucial if university research is to be transformed into successful commercial products. Stephen Metcalfe, MP said:
“Without a healthy commercial demand for R&D, the scope for universities to engage more in technology transfer is limited. Progress on this front is disappointing. The overall R&D intensity of the UK business sector is still too low compared to other OECD countries. Encouraging British business to invest more in UK R&D should be a key goal of the Government’s Industrial Strategy.”
University commercialisation has been identified in the Government’s Industrial Strategy Green Paper as a source of economic growth for the UK. PraxisUnico and AURIL will be contributing to the industrial Strategy consultation, highlighting the need to increase demand for research commercialisation by UK-based companies in particular, whilst supporting training and the spread of best practice to smaller or less experienced units. This directly supports a recommendation of the McMillan Review of Technlogy Transfer (HEFCE, 2016) which is part of HEFCE’s ongoing KE Framework project supported by PraxisUnico and AURIL. PraxisUnico and AURIL will be united as a single organisation from 1 April 2017, presenting new opportunities for the UK’s KEC profession. One proposal in development is for a national review of tech transfer offfices to highlight best practice; we would look forward to working with UKRI on this (Recommendation 7).
PraxisUnico also welcomes the Committee’s recommendations to review VAT on buildings and the emphatic support for HEIF which enables so many of our KEC professionals to bring research through to impact. The Committee recommended that HEIF-equvalent funding, which is for English HEIs only, should be ‘consistently available across the United Kingdom’. The Select Committee report can be read in full here.