World IP Day and Start-up Leeds

Author Lad 2011 Licence CC BY-SA 4.0 Source Wikimedia Commons

Leeds Central Library

 

Jane Lambert

In Where to Learn about IP for Free which I posted to NIPC Inventors Club on 10 April 2023 I discussed the Intellectual Property Office's Online Training Tools and how to access them and the nationwide network of Business and Intellectual Property Centres ("BIPC").  My nearest Business and IP Centre is at Leeds Central Library in Calverly Street.  I know it very well because I helped Ged Doonan and Stef Stephenson to set up the Leeds Inventors Club and I chaired almost every one of its meetings before the library became part of the BIPC network.

I have just received notice from the Leeds BIPC of two events that I particularly commend:

• Intellectual Property: Innovation and Creativity at the Central Library between 10:30 and 12:00 on 26 April 2023 to celebrate World Intellectual Property Day; and 
• Start-up Leeds on 12 and 13 May 2023 at Deacon House, 1 Seacroft Avenue, Leeds LS14 6JD.
  

For those who are not already aware of it 

"World Intellectual Property Day is an international festival of creativity and innovation which takes place on or around 26 April of every year. It celebrates the entry into force of the international agreement that established the World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO"), the UN specialist agency that assists governments to protect investment in creativity, enterprise and innovation ("intellectual assets") through a bundle of laws known collectively as "intellectual property".

You can find more information about the day on the World IP Day page of NIPC Wales. The event at Calverley Street will be a celebration of inspirational women inventors, creators, and entrepreneurs. The Business and IP Team will give a short talk about "fantastic inventions created by women that changed the world and made an impact on everyday life".  According to the Eventbrite card "an opportunity to meet and network with fellow entrepreneurs and discuss the challenges and the advantages of women in business."

Sadly, I won't be at the Leeds event because I shall be on my way to Anglesey to chair the Menai Science Park's World IP Day Seminar as part of Wales's celebrations of World IP Day. That event starts at 12:30 which is half an hour after the event in Leeds is due to finish and it will take place online as well as in front of a live audience at the science park.  Everybody who attends the Calverley Street event - indeed everybody in Yorkshire - is cordially invited to attend the Welsh event online and they will learn a lot if they do.  In keeping with the themes of the event, two young women entrepreneurs, Anna Roberts who set up Explorage.com and Anna Burke who set up Animates Technologies will talk about their businesses and how they use IP. The discussion is likely to focus on trade marks, database rights, trade secrets, copyright and maybe even patents.  Chipping in with expert advice will be patent and attorney Louise Carr from Cameron IP.  In the audience, there will be other experts such as Ian Wishart of Sybaris Legal and IP Insurance and I will cover anything that others may miss such as enforcement and transactions.  To attend the Welsh event via Zoom click here.

In Invention-Con 2022: The US Patent and Trademark Office's Online Conference for Inventors, Makers and Entrepreneurs I wrote on 22 July 2022 in NIPC Inventors Club:

"There is a great need for practical advice on patent, design and trade mark prosecution, grant, equity and loan funding, setting up businesses and scaling up which Invention-Con appears to deliver."

Start-up Leeds seems to go part of the way towards meeting that need.  I could not find an Eventbrite  card or any details on Leeds BIPC's website for this year's workshop but the following events took place last year according to the card for last year:

"Friday 14th April (9.30 - 16.30)

• Building the foundations of a successful business
• Business planning using the Business Model Canvas
• How to price your products and services
• How to forecast your cashflow

You’ll also find out more about the free support on offer through the Business & IP Centre, including the exclusive resources available for new and existing businesses

...........

Saturday 15th April (10.00 - 15.30)

• An Introduction to Marketing
• Tax and bookkeeping
• An overview of copyright and trade marks

There’ll also be the opportunity for networking, a chance to find out more about the Business & IP Centre and ask your questions."

Although I would have expected a little bit more about IP such as how it should be integrated into a business plan, enforcement, insurance and at least an introduction to patents and trade secrecy anybody attending this course would get a good grounding.

Anyone wishing to discuss this matter further can call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact page, 

Nesta's Inventor Prize

Jane Lambert

In "Harnessing the Potential of the UK's Home Grown Inventors" - The Government's Proposed Industrial Strategy 24 Jan 2017 Inventors Club, I mentioned the government's commitment to:

"....... seek to harness the potential of the UK’s home-grown inventors and stimulate user led innovation by launching a challenge prize programme. This prize, which will be piloted through the NESTA Challenge Prize Centre, will help inform our support to the ‘everyday entrepreneurs’ operating in companies and at home – such as through supporting enabling environments, incubators and maker spaces."

To my great joy and surprise, the  government has already started to implement its commitment by advertising for new IP policy advisors for the North and Midlands (see Implementing the Industrial Strategy: IPO seeks new Business Support Policy Adviser 25 Jan 2017 IP North West) and by collaborating with Nesta to "pilot an ‘inventor’ prize that will inspire and harness the potential of the UK’s home-grown inventors and stimulate user-led innovation" (see Announcing the Inventor Prize 24 Jan 2017).

I was even more delighted by the compliment that Nesta paid to two Yorkshire inventors in that announcement:

"But we are also looking for everyday inventors that see a problem in their daily lives and have an idea for a way of solving it in a way that improves people’s lives. This is a search for a modern day Percy Shaw - a Yorkshireman who repaired roads in the 1930s and whose light bulb moment was the invention of the ‘cat’s eye’ that helps prevent car accidents at night. Or more recently Emily Cummins, who at 19 years old invented an award-winning solar evaporation refrigerator."

 Yorkshire may trail London, South East England, the South West, East of England, West Midlands, North West and Scotland in the number of patent applications but there is no denying the quality of inventions that emanate from this county.

I will do everything I can to support this initiative. One of the ways in which I can do that is through the Inventors Club, Through that website I shall try to offer a wide range of services. I can help with advice on intellectual property ("IP") and, in particular, with patents (see also my Patents FAQ and IP Glossary). To help inventors, entrepreneurs, their investors and professional advisors throughout the North West and the rest of the country I have expanded and improved my IP service (see Immediate IP First Aid Nationwide 25 Jan 2017.

If you have a new product and are wondering how best to protect it, if you are thinking of launching a new business and are thinking of registering a trade mark, if you have received a solicitor's letter accusing you of infringing someone's copyright, design, patent or trade mark, if you think someone is infringing one of your IP rights or you have any legal question relating to branding, design, technology or creative works, call me on 020 7404 5252 or send me a message through my contact form.

Bradford Rising Stars: a local opportunity to implement Hargreaves

One of the recommendations of Prof. Ian Hargreaves in his review of intellectual property and growth published earlier in the year was for the IPO to draw up plans to improve accessibility of the IP system to smaller companies who will benefit from it. He added that this should involve access to lower cost providers of integrated IP legal and commercial advice.

I discussed this recommendation at some length in my article "Does Hargreaves say anything new?" (24 June 2011):

"The review recognized that SME want is an integrated source of advice which combines commercial and technical insight with legal expertise, helping them to commercialize, as well as protect, their IP. It also found that such advice is not always available from patent agents. That was just the sort of service that many – though, alas, by no means all - Business Link advisers used to provide. Hargreaves called upon the IPO to “draw up plans to improve accessibility of the IP system to smaller companies who will benefit from it”. The review added that “this should involve access to lower cost providers of integrated IP legal and commercial advice.” Again, these are worthy aspirations but there is a limit to what the IPO can do. The 13 PATlib libraries may be a better platform. Many such as Leeds, Sheffield and, of course, the British Library run IP clinics and inventors’ clubs. They also hold considerable collections of marketing and general business as well as legal materials which they make available to the general public. Unfortunately, our second city no longer offers the services of a specialist patent librarian and Liverpool library is closed for refurbishment."

The day before the IPO announced a package of measures to implement that recommendation I was at Bradford Chamber of Commerce meeting the Rising Stars team. The Rising Stars programme is a project funded by the European Regional Development Fund and Bradford City Council and administered by the Chamber to "help a select group of Bradford businesses to push ahead and grow." This help includes "a free, dedicated and personal advice service to entrepreneurs and established businesses within the Bradford area."

I was invited to meet the team because several had clients with intellectual property issues who had difficulty in obtaining affordable advice from patent and trade mark agents and reliable advice from anybody else. As Professor Hargreaves recognized at paragraph 9.9 of his review

"At present, long established IP legal advisors (for example, patent attorneys) seldom offer expertise on the commercial aspects of IP. Conversely, IP advisors with a business focus lack the detailed legal knowledge to assist SMEs in obtaining IPRs."

I had a very good discussion with the advisers. After explaining the difference between intellectual assets and intellectual property and the different types of legal protection that were available for brands, designs, technology and creative works, I outlined the services that were available for artists, designers and inventors and entrepreneurs and investors. I told them that these services were listed nationally and regionally on my Inventors Club website and updated regularly in my Inventors Club blog. I mentioned some of the services that I offer nationally through my NIPC Clinics and locally through my Third Thursday clinics at Gumption.

In Q & A I was asked precisely what I did and how my services differed from "pay-tent" attorneys and solicitors. After explaining as patiently as I could that the word for the monopoly of a new invention is pronounced "pat - tent" ("pat" as in grass at least as pronounced locally) and that "pay-tent" refers to the type of leather used for court shoes, I described the services offered by each of those professions. I explained how the relationship between patent and trade mark attorneys, solicitors and the patent bar was analogous to the relationship between general practitioners and consultant physicians and surgeons in medicine.

In answer to a question from Peter Briggs, who was determined to put this airy, fairy, uppity lady barrister in her place, as to when exactly he should send a client to me, I replied that I was a member of a referral profession and that in an ideal world clients should come to me through patent agents and solicitors. However, I added, I had noted that this was far from a perfect world and that by the time clients came to me it was often too late to help them. Sometimes they had spent all their money on applications for patents that they could not afford to renew let alone enforce or they had been to solicitors or other professional advisers on a learning curve who had tried to issue patent infringement claims in the local district registry or county court. That was why I had set up the clinics and inventors clubs to make sure that as many members of our local business community as possible get as much advice as possible at as early a stage as possible.

Mr. Briggs asked whether filling in the on-line form would oblige inventors to disclose their inventions. "No it wouldn't" I assured him. "It would simply enable me to find the best sort of help for them." I had a panel of experts with whom I had worked in the past and whom I could trust to do a good job at a reasonable rate:

• patent agents such as Michael Harrison, Alex Tomkinson and Tom Hutchinson;
• trade mark agents like Carin Burchill, Paul Dyson and Phil Cooper;
• US IP attorneys like Toni Tease and Doug Isenberg;
• specialist solicitors like Kate Reid and James Love;
• product design consultants like Richard Hall, John Biddleston and Alex Smith;
• brand consultants like Nick Burton

and all sorts of other specialists whose expertise runs from China to ceramics. "Well won't those folk charge" asked Mr. Briggs. "Only after they have identified the problem, decided whether they can help the client and quoted for the job" I replied.

The time at Bradford passed very quickly and, before we knew it, it was up. In an email to Carolyn Coleman who chaired the meeting I mentioned some of the other resources that I have not mentioned in this post such as my presentations on Slideshare, articles on J D Supra, blog on IP developments in the Gulf and, of course, my website.

Should anyone want to discuss this post or IP rights in general he or she should call me on 0113 320 3232 or use my contact form.

Forthcoming Evens: Sheffield Inventors Group and Open Coffee

Two interesting events coming up this week.

Tomorrow at 18:00 Dr Roger Lowe, an independent IP consultant who practises as IP 4 All, will be guest speaker at Sheffield Inventors Group. Roger writes:

"one issue which is often overlooked by many patent attorney’s is the provision of advice with regard to the identification of the most appropriate person/body in whose name the patent application should be filed. Many inventors simply file applications in their own name or names, but should they be thinking about establishing a company and filing the patent in the name of the company. I was planning to address the issues of ownership, co-ownership and corporate ownership and the pros and cons of the various options."

The meeting will take place at Sheffield Central Library, Surrey Street, Sheffield, S1 1XZ.

The next day at 10:00 Open Coffee Leeds will hold its monthly meeting at

NTI,

Old Broadcasting House,

148 Woodhouse Lane,

Leeds

LS2 9EN.

This is an informal gathering of creatives, entrepreneurs, geeks, investors and others which takes place on the second Tuesday of every month. Tickets are free and can be ordered for any Open Coffee gathering through Eventbrite.

Inventors' Resources in Yorkshire

I have just published an article on Inventors' Resources in Yorkshire and the Humber on my Inventors Club blog.

It sets out information on Yorkshire Forward, the Leeds and Sheffield LEPs, business advisers, business angels, clinics, community development finance institutions, inventors clubs, libraries and so on in the region and much, much more.

There is also an Inventors Club group on LinkedIn which you can join. Also, why not visit the Inventors Club website.

Leeds Inventors Club: 21 July 2010

On Wednesday I gave a talk to Leeds Inventors’ Club entitled “Keeping the Sharks at Bay: Resolving Disputes between Co-Inventors, Licensees, Investors and Third Parties”. In it I took four typical case histories which had given rise to difficulties for individual inventors and suggested some remedies. In other words, turning shark into delicious shark’s fin soup. I have amended the slides to take account of the site’s format and posted them to Slideshare.

Update: Sheffield Inventors' Club, IP Clinics and Training

I shall be speaking on how the economic downturn will affect inventors at the Sheffield Inventors Club at Sheffield Central Library, Surrey Street, S1 1XZ on Monday 1 Dec at 18:00.   I have already given this talk in Leeds and Liverpool where it seemed to go down very well.

We are also pleased to announce a new IP clinic at Catcliffe near Rotherham on Tuesday 13 January 2009.   Many thanks to Professor Ron Jones and Wei Huang of Horizon Composites for hosting that event.    We shall also be marketing the Barnsley clinic very much harder.   More details of the clinics are on our website at www.nipc-clinics.co.uk.

Finally, we also have a website for NIPC Training at www.nipc-training.co.uk.   You will see that we offer advanced courses for specialist lawyers and patent and trade mark attorneys known as "the IP staff college" and introductory and intermediate courses for the general public and non-specialist lawyers known as "the IP academy".   Both sets of courses are accredited for CPD points by the SRA. We have never had a barrister on our courses but if any member of the Bar wants to turn up we shall seek ad hoc accreditaiton from the BSB so long as he or she gives us at least 2 weeks notice.

Leeds Inventors' Club: How will the economic downturn affect inventors

Because of the exceptional events in the money and capital markets over the last few days Ged and Stef have decided to change our advertised talk.   We were going to get Barbara Greaves of YABA to talk about angel funding but everything that she will have said will now have to be revised.   Instead, I have been asked to speak and my topic will be "How will the Economic Downturn affect Private Inventors?"   

I have given a lot of thought to how the downturn will affect innovation as you will see from my latest post to my IP/IT Update blog. Demand generally will be weaker. Banks will be even less willing to fund new business ventures than they were before, at least in the short term. However, in the longer term they will probably find that some of the projects of the little chaps and lasses who consult me are a good deal safer than some of the hair brain products in which they have poured our deposits until quite recently. Finally, as the government has to stump up many billions of our axes to recapitalize the banks do not expect quite so much from Business Link, LEGI and even the lottery fund in future.

Because a lot of people will be in severe economic difficulties over the next few years expect some too-good-to-be-true advertising from invention promoters and other get-rich-quick Johnnies over the next few years.   These are to treated with the utmost caution.   

However, it is not all bad news. It is probably only the OECD countries which will slow down over the next few years.   Other countries such as Brazil, India, China and Russia (the so-called BRICs states) will continue to grow rapidly. Their exports may be hit badly by our downturn but they have enough internal demand to keep motoring. They may be very difficult to enter but they offer enormous opportunities for good poducts and services.   They will also become increasingly important as investors and research partners.

Finally, there will still be business to be done here. Even in the great depression many important new products were invented

• the yo-yo in 1929
• frozen food, the jet engine and sellotape in 1930
• the electron microscope in 1931
• the Polaroid and parking meter in 1932 (maybe the latter best forgotten)
• FM radio and stereo recording in 1933
• cats' eyes and Monopoly in 1934
• nylon, canned beer and radar in 1935
• voice recognition systems in 1936
• photocopying  in 1937, and
• ballpoint pens and instant coffee in 1938
  (Source "20th century inventions About.com: inventors)

And there will be plenty of new products and services from the next 10 yeas to add to them.

So do come along (with your brickbats if you will though I would prefer flowers or chocs :-)) to Leeds Central Library at 18:00 on Wednesday 15 October to hear yours truly sound off.