Oxbridge academics are notorious for resisting change - in any form - and have preserved some of their most outdated practices and laws. This week, however, Cambridge dons began voting on reforms - to alter the management of intellectual property created by university staff - that they would be wise to reject. The proposed changes could hamper innovation and the commercialisation of research in a university that has excelled on both counts.

Under the proposals, patents generated by internally funded research would be owned by the university.Currently, academics retain ownership of such intellectual property, in a system that is thought to be at least partly responsible for Cambridge's remarkable success at spinning off companies in "Silicon Fen". In the US, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford university - both prolific generators of spin-off companies - have similarly liberal policies on patents.