Dehns has many decades of experience working with clients in the Higher Education sector, and has long established relationships with a large number of universities, both in the UK and overseas, particularly in Scandinavia. We therefore have a comprehensive understanding of the specific IP needs, requirements and challenges of university clients.

For many of our existing university and Technology Transfer Office (TTO) clients, we provide a complete IP service which includes drafting, filing and prosecuting patent applications, providing infringement and validity advice, as well as initial consultations on invention capture, patentability, and providing workshops and seminars.

We are highly experienced at working directly with inventors, academics and those working within University TTO departments to identify potential IP at an early stage. Our approach is to support university innovation through minimising the cost of preparing, filing and prosecuting patent applications without compromising the potential for broad protection which maximises the potential commercial benefit. We regularly deal with IP issues faced by the university sector, such as ownership and the exploitation of IP generated within universities.

We appreciate that cost is an important issue for our clients in this sector and we work hard to keep costs to a minimum; value for money is undoubtedly one of the key concerns for all of our university clients and we work hard to deliver a high quality service whilst keeping costs under control, working closely with clients to help manage and control their IP budget.

We also understand the very real pressures on academics’ time, the desire for academics to publish their research, the fact that many academics are not familiar with the patenting process and that some may not fully embrace the advantages of patenting their inventions. We have considerable experience in working with academics and obtaining from them the information that we need for the patent applications in a sympathetic and time expedient manner.

Our Clients

Dehns currently acts for the following universities:

  • University of Manchester
  • University of Oxford
  • King’s College London
  • Warwick University
  • University of Leeds
  • University of Ulster
  • University of Sussex
  • University of Kent
  • University of Lancaster

In 2023, Dehns was appointed to the Scottish Universities Framework Panel to provide IP services to all Scottish Universities and Colleges; this includes IP protection and IP Consulting.

Dehns’ attorneys also have extensive experience of providing services to high quality, research-led universities in Scandinavia, especially Norway.  These include:

  • NTNU Technology Transfer (TTO for the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the Central Norway Regional Health Authority) – Dehns has been appointed as their primary IP services provider
  • VIS (TTO for the University of Bergen, NHH – Norwegian School of Economics and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences) – Dehns has been appointed as their primary IP services provider
  • Inven2 (TTO for the University of Oslo and Oslo University Hospital)
  • University of Stavanger
  • UiT The Arctic University of Norway
  • The Norwegian University of Life Sciences
  • Stockholm University

Case study

Insights