Asked by: Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many intellectual property licences the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology holds under contracts or terms of reference for (1) grants, (2) pre-procurement or proof of concept work, and (3) procurement; how many of those have sub-licensing rights; how many of those have resulted in sub-licensing; and how many of those sub-licences are for patents, and for which countries.
Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
DSIT Commercial do not hold this information but all contracts awarded by DSIT are published on contracts finder and can be accessed at GOV.UK and find a tender service.
DSIT Grants are mostly awarded the standard grant funding agreement recommended by Cabinet Office.
To provide the detail requested would incur disproportionate costs to the department.
Asked by: Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many intellectual property licences His Majesty's Revenue and Customs holds under contracts or terms of reference for (1) grants, (2) pre-procurement or proof of concept work, and (3) procurement; how many of those have sub-licensing rights; how many of those have resulted in sub-licensing; and how many of those sub-licences are for patents, and for which countries.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
HMRC does hold the information in the form requested, though could only be provided at disproportionate cost as HMRC has 566 contracts in 2024-25, and each contract has different IP licensee conditions.
After further analysis, HMRC has not identified any patents that it holds that generate income for His Majesty’s Government. Any patents or licenses held, that were created by HMRC contracting for services to support the efficient collection of taxes and discharge its customs duties, are used solely for these purposes.
Asked by: Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many intellectual property licences the Ministry of Justice holds under contracts or terms of reference for (1) grants, (2) pre-procurement or proof of concept work, and (3) procurement; how many of those have sub-licensing rights; how many of those have resulted in sub-licensing; and how many of those sub-licences are for patents, and for which countries.
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many intellectual property licences the Department for Business and Trade holds under contracts or terms of reference for (1) grants, (2) pre-procurement or proof of concept work, and (3) procurement; how many of those have sub-licensing rights; how many of those have resulted in sub-licensing; and how many of those sub-licences are for patents, and for which countries.
Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The requested information is not readily available in respect of grants, pre-procurement proofs of concept or contracts. Investigation work in order to collect relevant information would incur a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many intellectual property licences the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs holds under contracts or terms of reference for (1) grants, (2) pre-procurement or proof of concept work, and (3) procurement; how many of those have sub-licensing rights; how many of those have resulted in sub-licensing; and how many of those sub-licences are for patents, and for which countries.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The information requested is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.
Our standard terms and conditions have clauses setting out ownership, rights and permitted use of intellectual property (IP) assets created in the course of suppliers’ work for DEFRA. We do not keep a central register of IP assets and rights; these are the responsibility of contract owners and contract managers across DEFRA group.
To answer the noble Lady's question, we would have to access all individual contracts to ascertain what IP licensing terms have been put in place. This would mean that this request is manifestly unreasonable on the grounds of cost and time.
Asked by: Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many intellectual property licences the Home Office holds under contracts or terms of reference for (1) grants, (2) pre-procurement or proof of concept work, and (3) procurement; how many of those have sub-licensing rights; how many of those have resulted in sub-licensing; and how many of those sub-licences are for patents, and for which countries.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
Obtaining the specific information requested would involve collating and verifying information from multiple systems owned by multiple teams across the Home Office and, therefore, could only be provided for the purposes of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many intellectual property licences the Department of Health and Social Care holds under contracts or terms of reference for (1) grants, (2) pre-procurement or proof of concept work, and (3) procurement; how many of those have sub-licensing rights; how many of those have resulted in sub-licensing; and how many of those sub-licences are for patents, and for which countries.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The standard contract terms and conditions that are in use by the Department and across the Government include intellectual property (IP) clauses which grant the buyer a licence to use the supplier’s IP in the context of receiving and benefiting from the deliverables being bought. These typically allow sub-licensing under certain conditions and restrictions designed to avoid unfair exploitation of supplier IP. Standard terms and conditions are available on the GOV.UK website.
Such terms and conditions also allow for the buyer to publish any new IP rights as open licence under the Government’s standard open licence.
The Department may also obtain licenses from external supplier/organisations to utilise their IP. An example of this is the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP), which is a licensed program developed and owned by the University of Colorado Denver. The Department and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) have entered into a licence to deliver the program in the United Kingdom, and OHID is authorised to sub-license the FNP program to other organisations.
The Department’s grant funding agreements may include IP clauses where outputs are expected, but the intellectual property is usually retained by the grant recipient, with the Department granted a royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to use any arising IP for public benefit.
The Department currently has 474 active contracts and 31 active grants. Finding instances of active sub-licensing of IP would involve manual searches of the information held for each of these cases, and would only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many intellectual property licences the Department for Transport holds under contracts or terms of reference for (1) grants, (2) pre-procurement or proof of concept work, and (3) procurement; how many of those have sub-licensing rights; how many of those have resulted in sub-licensing; and how many of those sub-licences are for patents, and for which countries.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The information requested could only be collected and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many intellectual property licences they hold under contracts or terms of reference for (1) grants, (2) pre-procurement or proof of concept work, and (3) procurement; how many of those have sub-licensing rights; how many of those have resulted in sub-licensing; and how many of those sub-licences are for patents, and for which countries.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Basildon - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The government does not collate this information centrally.
Asked by: Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answers by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch on 10 March (HL5235), why the guidance was not developed to address matters relating to distributable profits given that, under part 23 of the Companies Act 2006, annual accounts are the relevant accounts for determining whether a distribution is lawful.
Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The guidance referred to in HL5235 is the FRC's Guidance on the Going Concern Basis of Accounting and Related Reporting (including Solvency and Liquidity risks). This guidance was developed to support companies in completing their 'going concern statement' and not to address matters relating to distributable profits. The Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales (ICAEW) currently prepares guidance on how companies should calculate their distributable reserves.