Imperial College London is looking to appoint an In-House Lawyer to work within its Enterprise Division.

The mission of the Enterprise Division is to offer the most advanced education and research, collaborate with other organisations, and apply our work to industry. Today, we have a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem: a home for businesses, researchers and the next generation of innovators. In this role, you will play a pivotal part in supporting the delivery of this mission by guiding the protection and successful commercialisation of Imperial’s discoveries, which could have a transformative impact on society.

An integral member of Imperial’s Enterprise, you will provide legal advice on intellectual property protection, licensing and company creation in the development of research technologies, progressing their path to commercialisation and market adoption. You will also provide negotiation support and legal drafting of commercialisation agreements. The scope of activity is potentially broad and will include liaising with key internal and external stakeholders across all Faculty areas within the College.

You will report directly to the Director of the Commercialisation Office, with an indirect reporting line to the Director of Legal Services. You will manage your workload of multiple concurrent projects to support licensing, start-up and other exit strategy activities. You may also be required to advise on other Enterprise activities where IP is being exchanged.

You will be a member of the College’s central Legal Services Office, which comprises a team of legally trained professionals who advise on a range of legal matters for the College.

Essential Requirements:

• Substantial Post-Qualified Experience with relevant IP law experience preferably gained in an in-house environment
• Substantial experience of the commercial exploitation of scientific IP (including patents, licensing agreements, copyright in software, and scientific know-how)
• Commercial negotiation and deal making experience in an engineering or physical sciences technology environment (knowledge of life sciences sectors desirable but less important).
• Experience in relation to patent litigation and contentious matters (copyright infringement and cross-border IP and trademark litigation).

You will also need to have a good understanding of:

• Current IP, copyright and patent law (in the UK and internationally)
• The academic environment, particularly university funding and technology commercialisation, preferably gained through experience of working within HEI or industry
• Research and product innovation and technology commercialisation processes, cultures and environments
• The science involved in a range of new technologies in a wide variety of disciplines

Key to your success will be your collaborative approach, with strong listening and communication skills, and ability to establish rapport and credibility by building and maintaining excellent working relationships, both internally and externally, with commercial colleagues, counterparties, senior academics, industry clients and partners. You will also demonstrate a strong delivery focus balancing systematic planning, attention to detail and influencing to contribute to delivering opportunities from ideas to signed deals in a time-pressured environment.

Further Information:

For further information, contact Ivona Ryan, Executive Coordinator at i.ryan@imperial.ac.uk

Closing Date: 15 November 2020

Committed to equality and valuing diversity, we are also an Athena SWAN Silver Award winner, a Stonewall Diversity Champion, a Disability Confident Employer and are working in partnership with GIRES to promote respect for trans people.