Intellectual property (IP) management with UU RIP AB

In collaborations with companies or foreign universities, agreements are entered into to regulate intellectual property (IP) rights. IP rights normally go to the originator at the University in accordance with “professor's privilege”. To make it possible for the University to enter into this type of research collaboration, there must be internal management of IP ownership. One way to manage IP is to utilise Uppsala University Research Intellectual Property AB (UU RIPAB).

Sweden is one of the few countries in the world where academic researchers own the rights to their results, unless other agreements have been made. This so-called “professor's privilege” makes it possible for you to create additional value for your research e.g. by patenting and commercialising the results in your own company, through licensing, or through other types of knowledge transfer.

In some situations, it may be problematic for the researcher to have ownership rights to their IP. One example is research collaborations where the funder or another partner requires all parties to be legal persons or where there is a requirement for the University to manage IP that arises in its part of the project. This may be the case in consortiums with industry and/or other universities, which require the signing of agreements governing IP. For legal reasons, it is not appropriate for the University to take over ownership rights from the researcher. An alternative is that you, as researcher, instead temporarily sign off your IP ownership to the University’s management company, Uppsala University Research Intellectual Property AB (UU RIP AB), in order to make it possible to participate in the collaboration.