Today, FTH launched an Intellectual Property (IP) pool.
This ground-breaking initiative will serve three vital roles. Firstly, it will offer a single ‘shop window’ for the intellectual property (IP) developed in our four national UK hubs: CHEDDAR, HASC, JOINER and TITAN. Secondly, it will advance technology readiness levels (TRLs) of UK innovations to seed a new industry through the generation of new spin-out companies. Thirdly, this intervention will also de-risk the adoption of new advanced connectivity technologies (ACT) by ensuring they align with the strategic priorities of businesses and markets.
The IP pool holds commercial assets that offer a wealth of opportunities for technology licensing and new spin-outs. Organisations can gain early access to groundbreaking research, and critically, be among the first to license transformative IP, staying a step ahead in the rapidly evolving market. Furthermore, a support structure is provided by the FTH, which will help nurture these assets and develop the entrepreneurial skills needed to commercialise the technology through spin-outs and create a mutually supportive spin-out ecosystem in the UK.
At FTH, we will will connect commercial organisations to the research they need, faster and more-cost-effectively. These businesses will be able to use the capacity of the FTH network to solve the problems of today, and to invest early into the scalable opportunities of tomorrow.
The IP pool will fast-track funding and financial backing for promising technologies through its proof-of-concept development fund. This measure is specifically targeted at raising the TRL levels of proven university technologies that experience strong market pull.
This will ensure that research projects and IP assets are developed into powerful, real-world applications that help position the UK at the forefront of research translation in ACT.
The FTH IP pool represents a powerful and timely complement to the traditional definition of academic success. By putting ‘patents before papers’, the IP pool will not only encourage greater commercialisation of research but also create a continuous cycle of rapid innovation and reinvestment.
Professor Harald Haas, Van Eck Professor of Engineering at the University of Cambridge and FTH Co-Director and FTH PI said: “The UK maintains one of the most advanced national telecoms research ecosystem in the world. Our research institutions and industry define global standards.
“But the realms of academia and business do not always connect. As a result, we lag behind countries like China and the US when it comes to patent filings. This initiative seeks to correct this imbalance, ensuring research excellence translates into commercial opportunities.
“The interventions in the FTH such as the IP pool are designed to make the UK the vanguard of advanced connectivity innovation by ensuring that we don’t just lead in research, but also in effective exploitation of world-leading research. By derisking the adoption of next-generation technologies, accelerating proof of concepts and changing cultural attitudes across within our research community, we will increase confidence for businesses as they solve the issues of today to shape the markets of tomorrow.”
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