LAURA TEIXEIRAFAPESP’s Board of Trustees has approved a change in the policy for intellectual property generated by research projects funded by the Foundation. FAPESP is no longer demanding to be the owner of patents, whenever this is in the interest of the research institution that is housing the project. The previous rule laid down the division of the ownership of the intellectual property between the Foundation and the institution with which the researcher who is responsible for the patent is connected. In accordance with the board?s decision, one of the objectives of the change is to adapt to the requirements of the Law on Patents, according to which the intellectual property always belongs to the institution that employs the researcher. “The change also seeks to create the conditions for stimulating the valuing of intellectual property inside the research institutions, as provided for in the Law on Innovation” says the Foundation?s scientific director, Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz.
In the period from 1999 to 2003, FAPESP forwarded 83 applications for patent registrations to the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI), which earned it 7th place in the overall ranking of applications. That was a result of the rule that established that the ownership of the patents went to FAPESP. The new guideline has as its basis the idea that FAPESP should not replace the teaching and research institutions, but help them to value intellectual property, by means of support and financing. Besides registering and protecting the patent, the licensing of the intellectual property has to be sought with companies, and this effort must be made by the institution that houses the project.
The draft of the new policy was debated on May 4 at a meeting of the Foundation’s scientific directorate with pro-rectors for research from the main universities of São Paulo and approved on May 30 by FAPESP’s Executive Board (CTA), before being forwarded to the Board of Trustees. Although it no longer demands to be the owner of the intellectual property, FAPESP is not giving up sharing any benefits that may be earned by the patents. As far as royalties, the guideline establishes that FAPESP will negotiate a fraction of the part that belongs to the research institution. Documents like the Grant Instrument should be altered, and an Agreement Instrument will now specify, on the basis of the new rules, the conditions agreed between research institutions, FAPESP and the companies, in the cases of the Small Business Innovation Research Program (PIPE) and Partnership for Technological Innovation (Pite) programs.
Support structure
FAPESP will continue to support the proposals for assistance to register patents, under the auspices of the Intellectual Property Support Program (Papi). The Foundation’s Technology Patenting and Development Nucleus (Nuplitec) will remain as a complementary structure for supporting researchers, universities and research institutes in search of licensing of the intellectual property of the inventions resulting from the researches financed by FAPESP. In the rule approved, the Board of Trustees states that intellectual property in academic institutions “must be a means for intensifying institutional results in the quest for the dissemination of knowledge with the objective of creating development”. And it stresses that the patents must not be seen as a way of earning money. “The fact is well-known and documented that few academic institutions in the world earn more money with intellectual property than they spend with its generation and maintenance. Even so, it is essential for them to be concerned and involved with this activity, due to their commitment to the dissemination of knowledge and the generation of new opportunities.”
