Of the domestic-based rightholders, most of the European patents validated in Hungary were held by the University of Pécs in 2020 alongside Richter and Egis - the news appeared in Világgazdaság recently. The University of Pécs currently has 161 patents, of which 19 are domestic and 142 are international. The latter cover more than 20 countries, including Australia, China, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, and France.
Since the early 2000s, the University of Pécs has placed great emphasis on the search for and protection of intellectual works created at the university and on helping them to being put on the market. Most of these are inventions or protected intellectual works whose industrial property protection is provided and covered by the university. There is a university fund at UP to cover the costs of protection.
Pécs was among the first Hungarian universities to recognise that in order to consciously manage, protect and put on the market its research and development capacities, knowledge asset, and research results, it is necessary to create an independent organisational unit that performs these tasks in a targeted manner. The task of the Research Utilisation and Technology Transfer Department is to effectively integrate the university's knowledge base into innovation processes, and thus to utilise research and development results and inventions to become innovations of real value to the economy and society.
In connection with the news, Professor Attila Felinger, Vice-Rector for Science and Innovation of the University of Pécs said that since 2005 the university has had regulations on the management of intellectual property, which is very favourable for the colleagues because the costs are mainly covered by the university, but the researchers benefit from the revenues. In addition, in recent years university researchers has had the opportunity to receive a grant of up to HUF 7 million for the implementation of ideas in which they see a market opportunity or in which companies may be interested. Clearly, this is a success story because they have several inventions for which there is also serious industrial interest.
Based on the intellectual property management regulations, the patent protection of the research results obtained here is provided by the university and all its costs are covered as well. If the intellectual work is utilised on the market and generates revenue, 70% of the amount reduced by the costs belongs to the researcher, the inventor. 44% of the patents come from the natural sciences, 35% from the fields of medicine and pharmacy, 14% from the technical field and 7% from other fields, such as viticulture. In addition, there are other forms of industrial property protection, such as plant variety, trademark, and utility model protection. The patent, besides granting the exclusive right to use, sell or otherwise utilise the solution, is also an important objective indicator and measure of scientific results that are based on globally new and inventive activity.
Source:
PTE