Welsh universities ‘not at immediate risk of collapse’

Thank you very much for your reply. It is wonderful that there is a conversation on this long overlooked/urgent topic.     I do disagree with your contention that "you need to invest over 20, 30, 50 years." For example, in the case of biotech Nobel Prize winner [Sir Martyn Evans] if patents were sought on to cover his fantastic discoveries at Cardiff university a tremendous flow of investment would have followed particularly if patents were filed in the USA, UK, Europe, Canada, Japan, and China. Literally hundreds or more molecular biology labs around the world use the techniques he developed.     It is a fallacy, that universities have to wait for a patent or patents to issue, the mere filing of relevant patents will bring investment in and/or generate spinouts (just like Queen's University Belfast, a third smaller than Cardiff, and certainly much smaller than all the research universities in Wales combined, and yet Queen's outperforms all of the Welsh universities combined by at least a factor of 3.5).    As stated supra, what is Queen’s secret? The key is the number of invention disclosures processed per year (“80+”) by Queen’s IP Office. That simple.    Investors need certainty and will back important breakthroughs when patents are in the pipeline.     Also, the processing of patent applications can be accelerated: "The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) is a program that accelerates the examination of patent applications. It allows applicants to request expedited examination in one patent office if their corresponding application has already been deemed patentable in another participating office. Essentially, it uses the results of a prior examination in one office to speed up the examination process in another."      For example, "Fast Track Examination of [Patent] Applications" is very much available in the USA:     https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/international-protection/patent-prosecution-highway-pph-fast-track#:~:text=Under%20PPH%2C%20participating%20patent%20offices,in%20a%20second%20patent%20office.    Please note: I am a retired US patent lawyer and won well over 200 patents for clients all around the world. (I am Welsh and love Wales: I would willingly come out of retirement and return to Wales to help Welsh universities boost their IP output (base mostly on a flat salary plus 5% commission that is how much confidence I have in Welsh universities) and would certainly have not overlooked an invention disclosure form from then Professor Martyn Evans had one been received in 'my' IP office! :)    

Too many people with insufficient motivation. Some are genuinely under rewarded, others should be told to go elsewhere. Plain truth is that not all academics are talented

I'm in a rush, so excuse typos:     "Something that seems to get little coverage amongst the general wailing."     You are right, patents are not seen as 'sexy' so the public and universities often pay 'lip service' to them - also, academics are awarded based on how many times they get published in learned journals; in fact this functions like a Cheetah racing for the finish line, in other words: promotion to more senior roles based on their publication rate.      So, the real question is how to crack/deal with this academic 'model'/modus operandi?     One way is to help those academics, who are engaged in cutting edge research, that filing a patent can be done in sync with their efforts to write the paper for publication. How can this work? Very simple, encouraging said research academics to fill in a simple invention disclosure form then rapidly decide if a patent application is merited and if so ask said academics to hand over their latest version of their paper, and convert it to a patent application with a concomitant set of claims explaining to the inventor(s) that a first application must be filed (in practice two, one for the UK and one for Europe) ahead of the peer review which can count in patent terms as a publication, same applies to posters (where the nuts and bolts of the discovery may be revealed in a poster to be seen by others), same applies to talks.      Should said academic publish there is still the USA and Canada markets that can be covered because they have, unlike much of the rest of the world, a one year grace period (Japan has a six month grace period) so 'not all' is necessarily lost accept that the patent coverage in the rest of the world is essentially lost; but, you would be amazed that a lot of discoveries are only filed in the USA because one patent application, meaning one filing fee, initially covers all 50 states of the Union. (The EU has recently implemented a similar patent it is called a Unitary Patent*) but to file in the EU must be done before publication). The UK filling date will count as a priority filing date.      So, 'where are we'/getting back on point: all it takes in a 'nutshell' is for the in-house patent attorney to make presentations in each university Department to briefly explain the patent process and pitfalls and how quick the response by the in-house patent lawyer/attorney can be.     The patent attorney should have the experience to pick winner, this also means listening closely/a lot to the prospective inventor(s).      Also, of course there is the question of: de niro/dosh/£; the university gets 50% cut, the inventor(s) 25%, and the relevant department 25%. So, there is a financial incentive – just ask Queen's University Belfast who adopt a similar split with GREAT success.      In sum, all it takes is to explain to the research academics (research students too) the issue over publication, explain the mechanics of filling in an invention disclosure (a standard form), and further explain that if it is deemed that it is worth going beyond the invention disclosure step that the in-house patent attorney will rapidly convert their research paper, poster or talk material into a patent application with a set of patent claims for rapid filling. So, the research academic can rest assured they will still be free to publish soon as the patent application is filed. That easy.    *"Since 2023, a new European Unitary Patent has become available which protects most countries in the EU with a single patent... It is expected that this will significantly reduce the cost of obtaining patent protection across most of the EU." (Due to Brexit, the Unitary Patent system does not apply to GB.)