A retired professor is suing Durham University for £8 million, saying he is entitled to a half share of profits after his employers sold a system he helped create for assessing schoolchildren.

Professor Peter Tymms says that he and colleague Professor Carol Fitz-Gibbon spent almost 40 years developing projects which the university then sold to the University of Cambridge for £16 million.

He says in claim papers recently made public at London’s High Court that he and the late Professor Fitz-Gibbon owned the intellectual property in the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM) project but did not receive a penny from the sale.

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The Northern Echo: Professor Peter Tymms Professor Peter Tymms (Image: Contributor)

Now Professor Tymms, of Rainton Gate, Durham, is suing Durham University for a share of the sale price for the project he says he helped create while working for Durham, and he values his claim at £8 million.

Professor Tymms, who taught in schools in Africa and England in his early career, has written two books and contributed to many more books and papers. He is a member of the British Academy.

He and Professor Fitz-Gibbon created a series of monitoring systems for schoolchildren to assess how well they were doing at school, and both academics joined Durham University in about 1995, according to the court papers.

The university’s policy, set out in a document, was to require staff to assign the rights in their work to it, but to share financial rewards from the work, the claim says.

A second policy in 2017 stated that the inventors should receive half the net proceeds from any financially successful work.

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After Professor Fitz-Gibbon died in 2017, Professor Tim Clark, faculty pro-vice chancellor, proposed that Durham would sell the system, and in 2019 it was sold to Cambridge University for £16m, it is alleged.

This said to have included projects created by Professor Tymms called PIPS, PIPS baseline, INCAS, IBIS, iPIPS, and PSCALES as well as those created by Professor Fitz-Gibbon, ALIS, YeLLis and MidYis.

The projects are used to assess the performance of children at school, from the earliest years to them becoming A level students.

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Professor Tymms had originally asked for his share of sale revenue to be used to fund scholarships for students in poor countries to study for research degrees at Durham, but this was refused by Durham, the claim says.

He accuses the university of failing to pay him and Professor Fitz-Gibbon’s estate a share of the £16m and argues that it has been unjustly enriched by the sale, which included trademarks, database rights, copyright and unregistered designs which were their property.

Now he is seeking a fair share of the value of the intellectual property the pair created, which he puts at £8m.

A Durham University spokesperson said: “Durham University’s position is that it would be inappropriate to comment on a live case.

"It should be noted that the university is working with its external solicitors to defend the case brought by Professor Tymms.

“It is disappointing that details of this case are being made public at this stage.”