On The Intellectual Property Rights of Academic Researchers: A Case Study

Abstract

This paper is a case study of an academic inventor who has tried to defend her patent rights against a major manufacturer of intensive care unit (ICU) ventilators, Hamilton Medical. In late 2019, the patentee started her litigation battle with the manufacturer in a United Kingdom (UK) court that proclaimed to be a low-cost court focused on intellectual property cases. The manufacturer, which has signed hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts in the U. S. and European countries in the past few years due to the COVID pandemic, was marketing its advanced system in Europe but not in the U. S. due to the regulatory problems. Despite this fact, the manufacturer filed an inter partes review of the U. S. counterpart of the UK patent, and the academic inventor had to fight a major legal battle over her patents in two countries simultaneously. This case study highlights the difficulties faced by individual academic re- searchers who assert their patent rights in a system that is tailored to fit big corporations and wealthy manufacturers.