U.K. University Victorious in R & D Copyright Case

The U.K. Court of Appeal has upheld a decision giving a University ownership of copyright in software programmes, even though the programmes were written by one of the sponsors of an R&D project carried out at the University. The judgement shows the importance of documenting in detail who should own the intellectual property rights created in a collaborative project.

Sheffield University’s department of clinical pharmacology had developed a modelling system for research to predict how potential new drugs would be absorbed and eliminated by the human body. The R&D project, which became the subject of the litigation, aimed to commercialise this into a more user-friendly form. Cyprotex was one of the sponsors of the programme but did not have the funds to provide sponsorship in cash. However, it did have expertise in the relevant programming skills and so it provided one of its employees to write the new software. The parties then fell out and Cyprotex sued the University, alleging