Stephen Brett
BIO
Stephen is a solicitor and partner at Anderson Law.
Stephen is recommended in Chambers Directory 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 Oxford University Innovation (then known as Isis Innovation Ltd), the technology transfer company owned by the University of Oxford. He was involved in the formation of over a dozen spin out companies and advised Oxford University 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.
Subsequently, he has continued to advise university clients as well as winning clients from the broader academic, NHS and research sector including research funders, medical charities, and NHS Trusts. 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. A significant proportion of his time is spent advising research funders, NHS Trusts and SMEs on data protection issues.
This mix of experience leaves him well placed to understand the needs and priorities of research, NHS and commercial clients.
Some of Stephen’s recent work includes:
- Advising an NHS Trust in patent licensing negotiations;
- Drafting a data sharing document for use by over a dozen NHS Trusts;
- Providing intellectual property and legal advice to a significant healthcare research funder on a secondment basis;
- Providing data protection advice to the executive education arm of a research organisation;
- Advising (in different negotiations) research funders and university clients on the negotiation of research funding and investment terms;
- 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.
EXPERTISE
- BA (Hons) Law, University of Oxford, 1994
- Solicitor, England & Wales, 1997
- LLM Computer & Communications Law, Queen Mary & Westfield College, University of London, 2008
WORK HIGHLIGHTS
- Anderson Law, 2011 to present
- Private practice focusing on intellectual property and technology transfer law, 2007 to 2011
- Counsel to Oxford University Innovation, University of Oxford, 2002 to 2007
- Private practice focussing on general commercial law, 1997 to 2002
