The Lambert Report on University-Business collaboration on research and technology transfer was published just before Christmas. I didn't read it in detail at the time because it was accompanied by the usual PR and platitudes about how it would be a good idea if there was greater cooperation and how it was inherently a good idea etc.

It does have some interesting things to say about intellectual property in the context of university-business research collaboration, however. Things that were not included in the general pr accompanying the report when it was published.
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media//EA556/lambert_review_final_450.pdf

Section 4 covers the IP issues.

Whilst recommending that UK universities be more active about filing and exploiting patents and commercialising their IP, it suggests that IP is never going be a major direct revenue generator for universities. It cites the cases of MIT, Yale and Stanford in the US as institutions which started out with expectations of high earnings from market exploitation of their IP but which have now changed their objective for engaging in technology transfer to improving the "public good."

Some quotes from the report:

"A warning: the impact of technology transfer on the direction of research - whether it be towards short term applied or long term research - needs to be monitored carefully."

Cited barriers to commercialising university IP:
"copyright law is a big barrier to research collaboration between universities and the private sector...."

There were "too many lawyers involved, and too much time wasted" in trying to sort out IP ownership issues between industry and universities.

The FT apparently have an article on it today but their site was down when I tried to access it.