"Ffiws" means, and is pronounced as, "Fuse" in English. It is the name of a maker space with 3D printers, laser cutters and other digitally controlled equipment. It is a partnership between Menter Môn, Gwynedd Council and several other agencies in North Wales. Earlier this year I was invited to give a talk at its premises in Porthmadog. Sadly, the visit had to be cancelled because of the pandemic but I still delivered the talk over Zoom and my slides can be downloaded from Slideshare if anyone is interested.
I think Ffiws is a great resource and the reason I mention it again now is that it has a base at the Menai Science Park (M-SParc). According to the Ffiws page on the M-SParc website, its facilities are available to the park's tenants and members of the Enterprise hub. Its equipment will also be taken on tour with M-SParc for demonstrations to, and possible use by, residents of the places M-SParc visits. There is similar equipment at the Bangor FabLab in the Pontio Centre though that building is temporarily closed for public health reasons.
On 8 Sept 2020, the business and professional networks that have developed around M-SParc will be celebrated in the Ecosystem 2.0 Webinar. Each member of those networks has been allocated 3 minutes to talk about their work or interests. I shall use mine to propose an inventors' club for North Wales to make use of Ffiws and FabLab and draw on the expertise of the Ecosystem.
"whilst lots of us often spot the potential for a new product or piece of technology, the harsh realities of research and development, prototyping, manufacturing and distribution often mean that few of those ideas actually make it to market."
Those words apply at least as much to inventors, designers, makers and entrepreneurs in Northwest Wales as they do to London. This is the British Library's solution:
"The Inventors’ Club has been established by the Business & IP Centre to give budding inventors the opportunity to network with others in the same boat, hear from speakers who have successfully commercialised their inventions, stay motivated and share insider hints, tips, expertise and experience. You’ll get feedback on your inventions in a safe, non-judgmental environment and also find out about how the Library’s extensive collection of business and commercial data can help you on your journey from someone with a great idea, to having a product on the market."
I set up and chaired inventors' clubs in Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield and supported the ones in Blackburn and Manchester. I can say from experience that they work. In each of those cities, the clubs helped entrepreneurs and inventors to set up new businesses or license the manufacture and sale of their products to other companies.
The Wessex Region of Technologists and Inventors in Southampton has published a useful article on Starting an Inventors Clubon its website. A Northwest Wales inventors' club is not something that can be run from outside. Local people must want it enough to set it up and manage it. If anybody in Northwest Wales is willing to take the initiative I shall place my expertise, experience and connections at his or her disposal. Anybody wishing to discuss this proposal may call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.
Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert On Tuesday 30 June 2020 I gave a talk over Zoom for the Menai Science Park Enterprise Hub entitled Understanding Intellectual Property. I spoke for just over 30 minutes and then answered questions from the audience. I made 42 slides which Emily Roberts distributed to attendees after my talk. I have also uploaded them to Slideshare. As there is a limit to what a person who did not attend the talk can learn from a set of slides, I have summarized my talk in this article.
Intellectual property is the collective term for the bundle of laws that protect investment in branding,design, technology and creativity. Examples of those laws include patents for inventions and copyright for architecture, drawings, films, novels, plays and sound recordings. They reflect a bargain that the public makes with those engaged in creating and disseminating new products and services. In exchange for sharing their creativity and innovation with the public, the public grants them monopolies or exclusive rights that offer them opportunities to recoup their investment and perhaps a little bit more.
Those monopolies and exclusive rights can be very valuable, As the Intellectual Property Office explains in its animation IP BASICS: Is Intellectual Property important to my business?. they can be used to exploit a competitve advantage. They can also make money even when their owner is not making or selling anything because they may be licensed for periodic payments known as "royalties" or assigned for one-off payments.
On the other hand, as the animation also explains, intellectual property can be an existential threat to a business. That is because the remedies and penalties for intellectual property infringement are draconian. Another reason to take account of intellectual property.
There are often different ways of protecting an intellectual asset. For instance, the inventor of a new product may tell the world how to make or use his or her invention in return for a patent. Alternatively, he or she may keep it under wraps and require his or her employees to keep it secret. Not a bad option for a product that cannot easily be reverse-engineered such as a beverage. That is how Coca Cola has kept its recipe secret since the end of the 19th century and the monks of Chartreuse the recipe for their liqueur for centuries, But a drug company with a new medicine in competition with other major pharmaceutical companies around the world will probably want a patent in each of its main markets.
When applying for a patent it is a good idea to instruct a patent attorney. They can make the necessary searches and draft the application in such a way as to maximize protection but minimize the risk of a challenge to the patent's validity. The Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys has produced a very good video entitled Why do I need a Patent Attorney?which shows how patent attorneys work. Many patent attorneys are also trade mark attorneys or work in partnership with trade mark attorneys. If a business owner wants to register a trade mark or design he or she would be well advised to consider a trade mark attorney, The Chartered Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys publishes a useful video on trade mark attorneys entitled How to navigate Intellectual Property Law.
I am often asked how much it costs to register a patent, trade mark or registered design. The answer depends on how much work the attorney has to do. There are also office fees and sometimes other costs such as translations or disbursements for other professionals such as barristers. Typically, a patent for the UK can cost anything up to £5,000 or even more if there are objections and hearings. Research published by the European Patent Office some years ago calculated that a 10 page patent with drawings for France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK renewed for up to 10 years could cost €30,000. A patent covering all those countries plus China, India, Japan, South Korea and the USA could easily amount to £100,000. Trade marks and registered designs are a lot cheaper. Well under £1,000 for a UK trade mark including searches, drafting a specification and correspondence with the examiner or third parties and even less for a design registration as there is no substantive examination.
Although some IP infringements are criminal offences, primary responsibility for enforcing IP rights lies with the IP owner. In Wales and England actions for IP infringement have to be brought in the Intellectual Property List of the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales. Claims for damages for patent or registered design infringement exceeding £500,000 are brought in the Patents Court which sits in the Rolls Building in London. Claims for infringements of other IP rights have to be brought in the Chancery Division of the High Court or a County Court hearing centre where there is also a Chancery district registry. The costs of litigating in Patents Court or the Chancery Division can be massive. Assessments of over £1 million are not uncommon. Claims under £500,000 can be brought in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court where recoverable costs are limited to £50,000. There is a small claims track for claims under £10,000 where the recoverable costs are limited to a few hundred pounds. The Intellectual Property Office offers a cost-effective mediation service and examiners' opinions on patent validity and infringement disputes. Both the World Intellectual Property Organization and Nominet provide a cost-effective service for resolving domain name disputes.
Intellectual property claims are often excluded from legal liability insurance policies but there are a few brokers who specialize in IP insurance. Ian Wishart of Sybaris Special Risks gave a talk on the cover that are available for start-ups and SMEs when he visited M-SParc last September. Other sources of funding are members of the Association of Litigation Funders. In the USA and some other countries, it is possible to instruct lawyers on the understanding that they will be paid only if their client wins and that their fee will be a share of any damages that may be awarded.
The following websites provide further information on intellectual property the last two of which are my own:
There is a network of Business and Intellectual Property Centres based which offer a wide range of services and resources onsite and online. The largest of those centres is at the British Library in London. The British Library Business & IP Centre video provides a good introduction to the Centre's services. Anyone can join its Linkedin and Facebook groups and subscribe to its mailing lists but it is necessary to obtain a British Library reader's ticket to use its onsite services. The nearest Business and IP Centre to Anglesey is Liverpool Central Library and its services are described in the Business and IP Centre Liverpool video.
I finished by mentioning that the Menai Science Park is gathering the following network of professional advisors who can advise and assist its tenants and other businesses and creative or innovative individuals in Northwest Wales:
The first question I was asked after my talk was how to protect computer programs. I replied that copyright was the main way of preventing copying of the code itself and perhaps also features of a program such as its system, sequence and organization. Secret information relating to the design and development of the program such as comments in the source code might be protected from unauthorized use or disclosure by the law of confidence or under the Trade Secrets Directive. Although computer programs are not patentable as such it is sometimes possible to obtain a patent for a software-implemented invention. The next question was on how to protect a new travel service. I explained that services were the most difficult type of innovation to protect. A service provider could register his or her brand as a trade mark and copyright prevented copying of manuals, advertisements and other literature. Business information such as customers' names and addresses might be protected by the law of confidence and the Trade Secrets Directive. However, the basic idea of the service could not be monopolized. Anyone could offer a competing service so long as they did not lead the public to believe that their services were the same as the original service provider's. My third question was whether copyright prevented copying of products. I replied that copyright was once an indirect way of protecting new product designs but that had been abolished by the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. Original designs - that is to say the shape and configuration of articles - are now protected by a new IP right called unregistered design right. The term of protection was much shorter: 15 years if nothing is made to the design or 10 years from the date of first marketing if articles were made to the design. In the last 5 years, anyone including an infringer could apply as of right for a licence to make the item.
The last question was on what to do if an infringer reposts a photo on his website without permission. I said that most actions in the Small Claims Track were claims of that kind (see Jane Lambert Damages Awards in the Small Claims Track17 June 2020 NIPC Law). The court could grant injunctions and award up to £10,000 in damages. It was not always necessary to instruct a lawyer for a small claim and the costs that could be awarded against an unsuccessful party were limited to issue fees, loss of earnings and travel expenses. Hearings of the Small Claims Track now took place in Business and Property Courts hearing centres outside London such as Liverpool and Cardiff.
Anyone wishing to discuss this topic should call my clerk Stephen Somerville on +44(0)7986 948267 or send me a message through my contact page.
Jane Lambert
On Friday 29 Nov 2019 I shall give a free class on how to search for patents, trade marks and registered designs and how to use the information that may be uncovered. It will take place at the Menai Science Park (M-SParc) at Gaerwen on Anglesey between 13:30 and 14:30. Possibly this will be one of the most useful talks that you ever attend.
The patent, trade mark and design databases kept by the world's intellectual property offices contain a massive volume of technical, scientific and commercial information which is free to use for just about anyone, anywhere in the world. All you need to know is where to look and how to use the information that you find.
As you know, patents are granted for inventions that are new and involve an inventive step. Similarly, designs can be registered if they are new and have individual character. Finally, signs can be registered as trade marks if they can distinguish one business's goods or services from those of all others. Patent, trade mark and registered design prosecution is not cheap. You can save yourself lots of money, time and grief by checking what has already been registered before you apply to register an intellectual property right that is either refused or taken away after it has been granted.
But that is not the only reason why folk search patent and other IP databases. Because an applicant for a patent has to disclose his or her invention in a manner which is clear enough and complete enough for the invention to be performed by a person skilled in the art every specification is in effect an instruction manual. Every patent database is in a massive library of scientific and technical literature. Of course,, patent specifications have to follow certain formalities. I shall show you how to read the specifications so that you can unlock and use the information.
Even if you have no plans for patenting an invention knowing how to search a patent or other IP rights database can still be useful. The registers can tell you a lot about the business of a competitor, supplier or customer. The classes for which a company has registered a trade mark will indicate the business that it hopes to develop in the next few years. The designs register may even indicate what its new products will look like so you can take steps to take advantage of any opportunities that may be created or counter challenges that be laid.
While I cannot make you experts within an hour I can at least tell you where you can get further assistance either free of charge of for a modest additional fee. These include the Business and IP Centres that partner the British Library in London and the Intellectual Property Office in Newport and the Patent Information Units around the country.
As I shall be making online searches you may want to bring your own laptop, tablet, smartphone or other devices to the event. Free wifi is available at the science park so you will be able to follow what I do online.
If you want to attend, you need only click this Eventbrite link to register. Should you want to find out more you can call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.
