IP Group backing launch of scientists’ ‘Facebook’

The UK’s biggest listed supporter of university spin-outs is investing up to £371,000 for a stake of up to 33 per cent in Marblar, described as a “Facebook for scientists”.

The online network promises to identify new uses for inert intellectual property by offering prizes and rewards as incentives to members.

Co-founder Dan Perez said 90-95 per cent of university disclosures “sit on a shelf collecting dust because the path to market isn’t obvious”.

Florida-born Mr Perez told the Yorkshire Post: “There’s enough unused innovation hiding beneath Oxford University’s pillow to spark the next industrial revolution – Marblar is here to set those discoveries in motion.”

Alan Aubrey, chief executive of IP Group, explained: “People can put up problems or intellectual property that they have developed that they can’t solve or don’t know what to do with and the community around the globe helps come up with a solution.

“It’s based on a simple concept. If you look over history, many valuable bits of intellectual property have ended up in different markets to where they started off.”

He gave the examples of gases developed for refrigeration helping to create Teflon and Gutenberg’s 14th century printing press, which adopted techniques from the wine press and coin punch.

“History shows that no-one has a monopoly on great ideas,” said Mr Aubrey. “Quite a lot of intellectual property goes to waste because no-one can think of an original application or make a connection.

“The idea is we use the power of the social network to do something which has been done throughout history but to do it in a more efficient way.

“History shows people around the world are willing to collaborate,” he added, citing the example of Wikipedia, the user-generated encyclopedia.

“We are trying to provide a platform to harness that collaboration.”

Marblar plans to launch commercially this summer following a successful beta project earlier this year, in which IP Group sponsored a competition to find commercial applications for a recent breakthrough in DNA chemistry by Professor Tom Brown at Southampton University.

In response, an academic at Cambridge University came up with a novel application. IP Group is now evaluating the application as a potential new spin-out company.

“It’s a great example of how the web is able to bring people together,” said Mr Aubrey. Prof Brown said the outcome was “stunning”.

Marblar is in talks with individuals, plcs, universities, not-for-profit organisations, research councils and a Formula 1 team to place their scientific discoveries on the network.

IP Group has backed a number of successful university spin-outs, including Avacta, Tissue Regenix, Evocutis, Tracsis, Green Chemicals, Getech and Xeros in Yorkshire. It has offices in London, Leeds and Newcastle.

Mr Aubrey, who lives in York, said Marblar can help universities in Yorkshire find commercial applications for intellectual property. He added: “It is an opportunity to create value out of IP that might otherwise have languished.”

He said the network could become a great source of new ideas and new companies that could ultimately benefit UK plc as a whole.

Mr Perez, the network’s chief executive and an Oxford University PhD student, described the current process of technology transfer as “atrocious”. He co-founded Marblar with Mehmet Fidanboylu, a PhD student at King’s College London.

@bernardginns