Earning more money from patents would halt university cutbacks, says lawyer

Martin Shipton

A Welsh patent lawyer who has worked in the Washington DC area for decades claims that cutbacks at Welsh universities wouldn’t be necessary if they secured more patents based on their own original research.

Dr Christopher Wood produced figures based on reported Intellectual Property (IP) findings published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) for British universities showing that while over the period 2014 to 2022 Sheffield University generated income from intellectual property rights totalling £194.94m, Cardiff University generated just £31.62m.

Eminent research university

Dr Wood, who is originally from Cardiff, said: “I don’t mean to pick on Cardiff University but it is the eminent research university in Wales and naturally should be earning a comparable amount of earnings/number of patents on its research and discoveries. But even in the case where a biotech Nobel Prize winner [Sir Martyn Evans] spent years doing research and making breakthroughs at Cardiff University, not a single patent was issued on his work.

“Just think of the high-value jobs that could have come if he had got patents on his work. This is so desperately sad for Wales.

“Sheffield University was picked because it is comparable in size to Cardiff University and both are Russell Group universities. What is interesting is that over the nine-year period, Sheffield University earned more money from IP by more than a factor of six. In other words, Sheffield University outperformed Cardiff University six times over.”

Dr Wood said that back in 2007, following a discussion with him, former Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Member Peter Black wrote in a party newsletter: “Despite spending half a billion pounds a year on research projects at universities in Wales, the number of patents that result is very low when compared to non-Welsh universities. For example, the University of Chicago had 500 patents issued or in the pipeline compared to around 50 for the University of Wales, of which 38 come from the medical school.”

“I have been beating this drum for over a decade – Wales’ economy needs to adopt the mantra: ‘the patent way is the right way’ to boost Welsh jobs and avoid university cutbacks.”

Evolution

A Cardiff University spokesperson responded: “The university is committed to continuous review and evolution of its commercialisation activities and is developing ambitious new strategies and processes to support this agenda from 2025/2026, building on recent successes and those at advanced stages and due for public release later in 2025.

“Patents are not the only form of intellectual property and a large proportion of university licence income is derived from non-patent IP. The process to grant patents also takes many years. We will only pursue [such a course] if there is a strong commercial case, informed by our engagement with independent external stakeholders.

“Cardiff University has a strong track record in technology transfer. It consistently ranks amongst the top 12 of Russell Group universities for licensing and royalty income generated from the commercial exploitation of its research base. Cardiff University spinout successes have been recognised in a recent report (Octopus Ventures, Gateways to Growth: The Entrepreneurial Impact Report 2023) whereby Cardiff University maintained a top four ranking in the UK for the commercial exploitation of research outputs from UK universities over the past five years.

“Cardiff University also competes with other comparable universities. The latest figures released under the HEBCI (Higher Education Business and Community Interaction) survey (April 2025) show strong outputs both in terms of Welsh Higher Education Institutions but also across other groups like the SETsquared partnership.

“Cardiff is now 11th in the UK for total IP income. It should also be noted that patent filings are included in annual returns to Medr and are essential for delivery against objectives established under the university’s Research Wales Innovation Fund (RWIF) funding.”

Wide ranging benefits

A spokesperson for the higher education funding body Medr said: “The research carried out in Welsh universities has been assessed as resulting in significant and wide ranging benefits in Wales and globally. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, 89% of submissions from Welsh universities were judged to have impact which was ‘world leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’, the joint highest total across the UK nations.

“One purpose of Medr’s RWIF is to incentivise commercialisation activity in universities, with funding based on performance metrics which include income generation from research and the number of spin-out companies that have survived at least three years.

“Our Strategic Plan sets out how we intend to collaborate with universities and others to ensure that the impact from research and innovation activity is fully exploited and how we will develop a basket of measures which capture the economic, social and cultural dimensions of that impact.”