Stephen Brett
Stephen is a solicitor and consultant with Anderson Law. He joined Anderson Law in February 2011. Since January 2012, Stephen also advises the OUH NHS Trust, on a two day a week basis.
Stephen is recommended in Chambers Directory 2012 as a leading lawyer in the Intellectual Property field. His background is in technology transfer law and he has worked as the senior in-house lawyer at Isis Innovation, the technology transfer company owned by the University of Oxford. Subsequently, he has acted for universities, research institutions and charities as a private practice lawyer. This mix of experience leaves him well placed to understand the needs and priorities of NHS, academic and commercial clients.
While at the University of Oxford, Stephen was involved in the formation of over a dozen spin out companies and advised Isis Innovation on a wide range of commercialisation issues including drafting and negotiating technology licences and consultancy arrangements, commenting on agreements submitted by third parties and advising senior management on strategic policy issues. He also advised the University on research and collaboration arrangements and on intellectual property related questions.
Since leaving the University of Oxford to return to private practice in 2007, Stephen has retained strong links with the university sector. He has continued to advise university clients as well as winning clients from the broader academic and research sector. In the commercial field, he has acted for high-tech businesses of all sizes and represented individual inventors, academics and entrepreneurs. His experience covers a wide spectrum of intellectual property and commercial issues including advising on the structure and drafting of commercial terms of business, service provision and distribution agreements, licences and confidentiality agreements, drafting website terms and IT agreements, and, advising on data protection issues.
Some examples of his recent experience include:
- Providing a virtual in-house advisory service for the technology transfer office of a university client;
- Advising a research charity on the creation and implementation of their IP and commercialisation policy, including drafting and commenting on specific documents;
- Assisting individual academics in their negotiations to formalise and correct revenue sharing arrangements;
- Representing individual academics during the formation of a university spin out company;
- Advising (in different negotiations) research funders and university clients on the negotiation of research funding and investment terms;
- Drafting and negotiating a range of documents on behalf of technology companies including companies in the drug discovery and medical device fields, online publishing and software design arenas.
- Drafting guidelines for use by an NHS Trust regarding the use of patient data.
- Providing an in-house advisory service for an NHS research office.
In addition, Stephen contributes to our blog and regularly presents seminars and training sessions for those in the technology transfer field.
