Barnsley IP Clinic 14 April 2020

By Badics - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35492068

Jane Lambert

On the second Tuesday of every month, I hold an intellectual property clinic at Barnsley Business and Innovation Centre at Wilthorpe between 16:00 and 18:00.  The next one is due to take place on Tuesday, 14 April 2020.  Obviously, I can't visit the Centre and neither can those who require advice but there is no reason why the clinic cannot be conducted by phone or video link.

As I said in IP Services during the Emergency 23 March 2020 NIPC Inventors Club, IP is now more important than ever:

"If we are ever to stop Covid-19 in its tracks it will be through the efforts of universities and biotech and pharmaceutical companies around the world whose research will have to be funded. Much of that funding will come from the private sector which will require legal protection for the revenue streams from which it will recoup such investment."

Very much the same is true of the design and development of medical devices, personal protection equipment, infection tracking and logistics software and all the other contributions that will be required to counter the menace.

Much of that work will be done by small businesses and in some cases individuals.   As I also said in the article, those businesses will need the best possible advice on patenting, licensing and technology transfer too and they will need them on affordable terms.  I cannot carry all the answers in my head but I can introduce you to attorneys, design consultants, specialist accountants and solicitors and others who can help take your project forward,   I described all the services that I offer in Barnsley Pro Bono IP Clinic 12 Nov 2019 7 Nov 2018,

So if you want to attend my online clinic please, complete the Initial Advice and Sihnposting form as soon as possible.

Business University Collaboration - the Yorkshire Innovation Fund

Yesterday the Yorkshire Innovation Fund started to follow me on twitter so I thought that the least I could do was to check it out. It describes itself on its home page as "a way of funding new ideas within your business" and explains:

"Many new ideas require a blend of skills and expertise to get them off the ground and working with a local university can often help by providing access to expertise, specialist equipment or facilities or new talent to develop your idea. YIF funds this access."

In other words, it puts up the money to pay for R & D and other work carried out by one of its partner universities which seem to include most of the universities in Yorkshire with the notable exception of the University of Sheffield.

Available Funding
According to the Is my company in an eligible sector? page of its website

"The Yorkshire Innovation Fund is available to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the Yorkshire region from the following areas:

• Advanced manufacturing, engineering & materials

• Bio-renewables (feedstocks, raw materials and ingredients)

• Healthcare technologies

• Low carbon energy (e.g. wind, nuclear, carbon capture & storage, bio-fuel)

• Bioscience

• Creative and digital 

• Chemicals

• Financial and business services

• Food and drink

• Sport (South Yorkshire SMEs only)"

On the What types of project has YIF supported? page the website mentions small innovation projects up to £10,000, research and development projects up to £31,000 and strategic intervention for which no figure is given. Detailed case studies of projects that the Fund has supported in the past can be downloaded from the Projects YIF has funded page on its website.

Funding for New Projects
This would seem to be a good port of call for many of the entrepreneurs and inventors I have seen in my IP clinics and the Leeds and Sheffield inventors clubs over the years except for this warning that appears on the home page:

"YIF is currently unable to commence any new projects with regional SMEs and is exploring new funding opportunities to support collaborative projects in the future."

We must hope that this is only a temporary hiccup and that the Fund will refill its coffers soon. It must be remembered that this is only one funding option among many and that I discussed some of the other options in Business Funding in Leeds City Region on 1 June 2015.

Issues to consider when Negotiating with a University
If a business does commission a university to do some work for it, its management should give some thought as to

• the ownership and rights to use the results of the project
• the financial and other contributions made by the commercial sponsor
• the university’s use of the results for academic purposes.

It may come as a shock to readers that a not insignificant part of my work as a member of the IP bar is taken up with negotiating those issues with, and occasionally on behalf of, universities and resolving disputes over those issues once the work has been completed.

The Lambert Agreements

At the beginning of the present millennium Mr Gordon Brown who was then the Chancellor of the Exchequer commissioned Sir Richard Lambert (as he now is) to review collaboration between businesses and universities. In his Final Report which was published in December 2003 Sir Richard identified concern over those issues as one of the impediments to such collaboration. To allay those concerns the Chancellor asked Sir Richard to hold further meetings with stakeholders to develop model contracts for such collaboration and I actually participated in one of those sessions, The result has been a number of model agreements which are explained in The Lambert Toolkit. The Intellectual Property Office has helpfully provided a Decision Guide to help negotiators choose the right contract.

Need for Caution

Although it is a lot easier than it was dealings between universities and businesses are still tricky largely because academics and businessmen have different interests and come from different cultures. Universities have become pretty savvy of late and they have access to good and experienced legal and accounting advice. Entrepreneurs are often at a distinct disadvantage (especially in the early days of their business careers) and they need all the professional help they can get.

Should any reader want to discuss this article or requires advice on business-university collaboration or funding in general, he or she should call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or contact me through this form.

Business Funding in Leeds City Region

Jane Lambert


"Where do I get funding for my business now that the banks have stopped lending?" This is the most frequent question that I have been asked since 2007 at my IP clinics, inventors clubs and talks and seminars for business start-ups even though as an IP lawyer I claim no expertise in business funding. Now at least I have a  website to which I can refer enquiries in the Leeds City Region at any rate.

Leeds City Region LEP
The Leeds City Region Local Enterprise Partnership, which is a collaboration between local authorities and business leaders and academics within commuting distance of Leeds City Centre to promote economic and social development within that region, has gathered together a web page listing all the funding options that are available to businesses in that region  The title of that web page is Business funding options and you will find it at http://business.leedscityregion.gov.uk/support/funding/

Types of Funding 
Funding for businesses falls into two categories:

• long term investment in plant, buildings and other fixed assets; and
• short term funding to purchase stock or meet other immediate priorities.

As a general rule long term investment takes the form of investment in exchange for a share in the business while short term funding takes the form of loans.  If you don't know the difference between investment and lending then your first port of call should be "Business Finance Explained" on the gov.uk website. Once you are clear in your mind as to what you need for your business and what is on offer then take another look at the Business Funding Options web page.

Types of Funding Available

The website offers information on:

• Grants: essentially gifts of money that do not have to be repaid;
• Investments: funding in exchange for shares in a limited company or possibly a partnership; and
• Loans: funding that has to be repaid usually with interest.

Grants

One source of grant funding is The Business Growth Programme which provides grant funding to businesses based in Leeds City Region or planning to invest here. You will find further details on the LEP Business Growth Programme page of the LEP's website. There are details of other grants on the LEP website. There is also a very good website called j4bGrants which publishes a regular newsletter to which you can subscribe.

Investment

This could come from a business angel (a wealthy individual who wishes to invest in a new venture) or an institution that believes that your business will grow very quickly and sees an opportunity to make a substantial profit in two or three years time through a flotation on the stock market or a business sale. The LEP website links to Envestors which manages the Yorkshire Association of Business Angels (a group of business angels based in Yorkshire) and to Finance Yorkshire which provides a range of funding products.

Lending

Traditionally short term lending has been provided by the clearing banks and the LEP has arrangements with a number of banks that have received funding from the Regional Growth Fund to support local business. The Business Funding Options web page mentions those arrangements and links to a number of lending schemes. It also links to  the Business Enterprise Fund which is a community development finance institution which can sometimes offer loans to businesses that would not qualify for bank lending.

Eligibility

The website is directed to businesses that are in, or are contemplating moving to, the Leeds City Region only. Check the coloured map above to see whether you are in or out of that region. This article may still be useful to you even if you are outside this region because other regions make similar provision for businesses in that area.

Legal Advice

Whatever form of funding you seek even if it is a grant you will enter legal relations with, and may well incur legal obligations towards, your funder. Before assuming those obligations you should seek proper advice from an experienced business lawyer. Remember that there are likely to be many issues such as tax, intellectual property and enforcement.  

Further Information

if you want to discuss this article, call me on 020 7404 5252 during business hours or send me a message through my contacfot rm.

Post Script

Kin F. Kam wrote on Linkedin: "If you have an innovative product underdevelopment, or in the hope of developing it, there is also #InnovateUK 's innovation voucher scheme. It's worth £5K. I got mine confirmed last week."

Many thanks for that comment and good luck with the business

Lennon to run Angels' Den in Yorkshire and the Humber

Yesterday I received an email from Amanda Lennon to say that she is now running Angels Den in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Amanda has recently returned to the UK from New Zealand where she worked for a number of enterprises in the public and private sectors. These included project management for the Rugby World Cup in Auckland, Commercial Manager of the Geospatial Research Centre and Incubator Manager of powerHouse, a university incubation service in Christchurch. I first met Amanda when she ran the University of Huddersfield "Business Mine" and later set up and ran the Bradford IP clinic for her at Velocity.

Angels Den is one of the biggest angel networks in the UK with branches throughout the nation and overseas. I have already written about the Qatar network in NIPC Gulf ("Angels' Den in Qatar" 26 Sept 2011) and they have expressed interest in participating a seminar for the FabLabs and similar organizations which I discussed with Haydn Insley of Manchester FabLab after his presentation to the Liverpool Inventors Club last month (see "Liverpool Inventors Club Re-launched" IP North West 29 Feb 2012).

Angels are equity investors who often can offer skills and experience as well as capital to promising start-ups and other small and medium enterprises. They fill the gap between fools, friends and family and private equity. For an introduction, see my article on "Business Angels" on the NIPC Inventors Club website and "On the Side of the Angels" on my chambers website on the 6 July 2011 and my article "What Business Angels and VCs need to know about IP" on 21 June 2011.

Amanda can be contacted by email at Amanda@angelsden.co.uk or by telephone on  07805 313904.

If anybody has any questions or comments about this post or angels funding generally, he or she can contact me through my contact form,, Facebook, Linkedin, Xing or twitter or call me on 0113 320 3232 .

Forthcoming Events: Right Funds 4 U, Hull 13 April 2011

My friend John Coulter of Business Link sent me this flyer for a free seminar on attracting investment for a new business. Speakers include a banker, business angel, venture capitalist and grant advisor. The event takes place at Rollitts in Hull on 13 April 2011 at 17:30 and you can book through Connect Yorkshire's website.

Business Link: Business Link Berkshire & Wiltshire Ltd v Fearn

On 1 April 2008 Business Link West Yorkshire merged with its counterparts in North and South Yorkshire and Humberside to form Business Link Yorkshire. Similar mergers took place in the North-West and other regions of England. On its national website Business Link describes itself as "a free business advice and support service, available online and through local advisers". 

Business Link is the conduit through which considerable sums of public money are  distributed. No doubt such funding stimulates demand for goods and services creating jobs and other benefits but there are occasions when things go very wrong.   Such an occasion led to the appeal in Business Link Berkshire & Wiltshire Ltd v Fearn [2009] EWCA Civ 455 (20 May 2009).   

This was a claim by Business Link to recoup moneys paid under a rural regeneration scheme.   Business Link had channelled £20,000 of money that had been provided by the government to assist rural communities to recover from the foot and mouth disease outbreak to set up a new company called Regional Producers Ltd.    The transcript does not make clear what business the new company was to transact beyond stating that it was to consist of producers from all over Wiltshire.   Some of that money was to be paid to solicitors, some to media consultants and some to the defendant personally.  Business Link claimed back that money on the ground that it had been obtained by fraud.   The district judge who tried the claim found that the defendant had indeed made a fraudulent misrepresentation but awarded Business Link just £2,000 of its claim on the ground that the balance would have been paid anyway.

Not surprisingly both sides appealed: the defendant on the ground that his reputation had been besmirched and Business Link for the balance of its money.   Although Lord Justice Waller considered a retrial over such insubstantial sums to be "unattractive in the extreme" the Court of Appeal felt that it had no choice.   The district judge's finding that the balance would have been due anyway was contradicted by correspondence and there was some evidence that funding  had been approved even before the allegedly fraudulent misrepresentation had been made.

The allegedly fraudulent misrepresentation was that Regional Producers Ltd. had 25 members.   This was to meet a stipulation by an intermediary known as Great Western Enterprises Ltd. that had channelled the regeneration money from the South West England Rural Development Agency to Business Link. The reason for that stipulation is unclear and the Business Link adviser had hinted to the defendant that it could be relaxed.   The defendant had certainly provided a list of names but it was not clear whether it was a list of actual shareholders, as Business Link alleged,  or merely of persons interested in taking a shareholding as the defendant contended.

The tragedy is that a great deal more than £20,000 will already have been spent on this litigation to bring it to this point and even more is likely to be spent before it is resolved.