Recommendation 6

The ventilator challenge produced intellectual property that should be exploited to maximise value for the taxpayer. The ventilator challenge produced a number of designs in a very short space of time, even though many did not go on to be manufactured. This was in part due to the Cabinet Office’s approach of fostering collaboration between small product designers and large manufacturers. There will be potential value in the intellectual property associated with these designs. Where it paid for a manufacturer’s design work as part of the challenge, the Cabinet Office tells us that it will get a royalty if in future a manufacturer uses the design to take 8 Covid-19: Supply of ventilators a unit to market. However, this currently relies on the goodwill of manufacturers to inform the Cabinet Office that they have used the design, as there is no plan or mechanism in place for it to monitor whether this occurs. Recommendation: The Cabinet Office should set out, as part of its Treasury Minute response, how it plans to maximise the value to the taxpayer from the intellectual property created through the ventilator challenge. This should include how it plans to: • use its learning from the ventilator challenge to set out how it could bring together small and large companies to develop workable and scalable products that the government needs in future; and • monitor whether intellectual property it owns is used so that it can achieve value for money for the taxpayer. Covid-19: Supply of ventilators 9 1 Preparedness for the pandemic