M-SParc's World IP Day Celebrations

 

Jane Lambert

World Intellectual Property Day is an international festival of creativity, enterprise and innovation on or around 26 April of every year.  The Menai Science Park ("M-SParc") has celebrated the event every year since 2019.  Information about its previous celebrations can be found on the World Intellectual Property Day portal of this website.

Each year, the festivities revolve around a different theme.  This year's theme is music. I wrote about that topic in World Intellectual Property Day 2025 - IP and Music: Feel the Beat of IP on 28 Dec 2024.  As I noted in that article, "music is an art form in which Wales excels in every genre and at every level."  As in previous years, M-SParc plans to hold a lunchtime seminar to celebrate the event.  As 26 April falls on a weekend this year, the seminar will take place between 12:00 and 14:00 on 29 April 2025.

Gwenllian Owen, M-SParc's Innovation and Commercialization Officer, has put together a great programme of talks which will include contributions from 

• Emma Richards of the Intellectual Property Office on IP strategy, 
• Dr Steffan Thomas of Bangor University Business School on music copyright, 
• Copyright consultant Dafydd Roberts on copyright, publishing and performance. 
• John Hywel Morris of the Performing Right Society on collecting societies, and  
• Liam Kurmos of Busnes Cymru on copyright and artificial intelligence.

I shall chair the event as in previous years.  We have invited a lot of distinguished guests from the performing arts, universities, legal profession in Wales and beyond.  Everybody who attends will have an opportunity to say a few words from the floor.

This promises to be M-SParc's most ambitious celebration of World IP Day yet. If you happen to be in Northwest Wales on the day, you will be welcome to join us in person at M-SParc.  Anyone, anywhere else in the world, can attend by video link.  In either case, click this link and follow the simple registration instructions on the Eventbrite card.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during the usual UK office hours or send me a message through my contact form at any other time.

World IP Day 2024 - IP and the Sustainable Development Goals

Jane Lambert

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". World IP Day is one of two annual intellectual property events that the Menai Science Park ("M-SParc") celebrates every year.   The other is Wales Enterprise Day which takes place in November,

Every year World IP Day revolves around a different theme.   The theme for 2024 will be "IP and the Sustainable Development Goals".  There are 17 sustainable development goals which are introduced by this YouTube video.  M-SParc and the other science parks of Wales have businesses that promote those goals.  World IP Day 2024 will be a splendid opportunity to promote and celebrate those enterprises. This year's celebrations by M-SParc and other organizations throughout the United Kingdom should do much to bring the sustainable development goals to the attention of the British public.   Although I like to keep of myself as reasonably well informed of such matters I had only the sketchiest awareness of the programme before the announcement of the theme for this year's World IP Day,

As the theme for World IP Day 2024 has only just been announced I have not yet had an opportunity to confer with the management of M-SParc about this year's celebrations.  In the past, the park's managing director, Pryderi ap Rhisiart,  has put Emily Roberts, M-SParc's Outreach and Community Manager, in charge of the event and I have assisted Emily by suggesting speakers and chairing pr speaking at the event on the day. I shall be very glad to assist M-SParc again if it so wishes this year. As soon as the Christmas and New Year's Day holidays are over, I shall seek an early video conference with Emily and her colleague, Iwan Pitts, to discuss M-SParc's contributions to the World IP Day 2024 celebrations.

By celebrating World IP Day and Wales Enterprise Day, M-SParc has done much to raise awareness of the importance of intellectual property not only among its own tenants but also among businesses and institutions throughout Northwest Wales. Safeguarding businesses' investment in branding, creativity, design and innovation is crucial to the economic regeneration of the region.

Anyone wishing to discuss this topic can call me on 020 7404 5252 during normal business hours after the holidays. In the meantime, they are welcome to send me a message through my contact form.

World Intellectual Property Day - M-SParc's Luchtime Seminar

Jane Lambert

World Intellectual Property Day - Celebrating Wales.s Women Entrepreneurs, Inventors and Creatives - Menai Science Park 26 April 2023 12:30 

It is less than three weeks to World Intellectual Property Day.   For readers who missed my post, World Intellectual Property Dat 2023, on 27 Jan 2023, it is a worldwide festival of creativity, enterprise and innovation which takes place on 26 April of every year.  Each year the celebrations focus on a different theme.  This year's theme will be Women and IP:  Accelerating Innovation and Creativity.  In keeping with that theme, the Menai Science Park ("M-SParc") will celebrate the contribution of women entrepreneurs, inventors and creatives in Wales.

As in previous years, the main celebration at M-SParc will be a lunchtime seminar which will take place in one of the conference rooms and online.  One of the speakers will be Anna Roberts, the founder and CEO of Explorage.com.  That company has just launched a new web-based service that helps those with goods to store to find the optimum self-storage facilities in their area.  It also puts those with self-storage facilities in touch with members of the public looking for self-storage.  Emily Roberts has written about the service in Explorage com Launches New Platform which she posted to M-SParc's website on 6 April 2023.

Explorage.com is one of many innovative new businesses that are based in M-SParc.  Most provide services which is to be expected in a mature economy such as the United Kingdom where services account for 79.2% of GDP.  That is comparable to France at 78.8%, Germany at 71.1% and the USA at 79.7%. Protecting innovation in services is challenging because the world's intellectual property system was constructed during the industrial revolution when the priority was to protect innovation in manufacturing.  That may explain the exclusions of schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers as such from the definition of patentable inventions in art 52 (2) (c) of the European Patent Convention,  Also, it was not until the mid-1980s that the Trade Marks Act 1938 was amended to enable the registration of trade marks for services.

As there is no such thing as a service patent, new services have to be protected indirectly. That requires an analysis of the service provider's income-generating assets and a plan for protecting them which ideally should be incorporated into the enterprise's business plan.   In most cases, it is the brand that attracts customers so the enterprise will have to fund the registration of a trade mark in all the countries in which it intends to do business.  Sometimes the most important asset will be technical or commercial information. Trade secrecy law throughout Europe has recently been codified by the Trade Secrets Directive which remains part of our law notwithstanding Brexit.  Thought also has to be given to enforcement which remains expensive despite efforts of the courts and legal professions to minimize the costs.  For most small businesses, IP enforcement requires specialist insurance the premiums for which should also be written into the business plan.

These and other issues will be on the menu at M-SParc's lunchtime seminar on 26 April 2023.  If you want to book your place at the table or are looking for more information, call me at +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during office hours or message me through my contact form.

World Intellectual Property Day 2023

Author WIPO Licence CC Attribution 3.0 IGO

 

Jane Lambert

World Intellectual Property Day is an annual, international festival of creativity and innovation that takes place on or around 26 April to celebrate the anniversary of the coming into force of the treaty that established the World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO"), the UN agency for intellectual property.   Each year the celebrations focus on a different theme.  This year's theme is "Women and IP: Accelerating Innovation and Creativity."

The Menai Science Park ("M-SParc") at Gaerwen on Anglesey has celebrated every World IP Day since 2019 with a lunchtime seminar.  These have been Wales's main contribution to the worldwide celebrations.  They have raised awareness of the importance of intellectual property to the businesses and general public in Northwest Wales but also the rapidly growing importance of the region to the Welsh and wider UK economies.   

Nothing underscores the region's importance more than the opening of Aria Film Studios near Llangefni which I shall discuss in a separate article shortly.  Those studios have stimulated demand for creatives and technicians of all kinds prompting imaginative responses from local and national recruitment and training providers.  

It is with those developments in mind that M-SParc has begun to plan this year's World IP Day celebrations.  As in previous years, the project will be led by Emily Roberts with the assistance of Charlie Jones.   The centrepiece will be a hybrid in-person and online seminar for which we hope to use the Haia platform.  The main speakers will be women inventors and creatives from M-SParc's tenant companies plus at least one IP professional.   As we have a little more time to plan this year we hope to encourage some of the organizations based at M-SParc and in the region to stage their own celebrations. 

Anyone wishing to discuss this article is welcome to call me at +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form at any other time. 

World IP Day 2022: IP and Youth: "Innovating for a Better Future"

 

Since 26 April 2019, the Menai Science Park (M-SParc) has led Wales's contribution to the worldwide festival of creativity, enterprise and innovation known as World Intellectual Property Day. Each year the festival focuses on a different theme. The theme for this year is "IP and Youth: Innovating for a Better Future."  At a video conference earlier in the year, Emily Roberts, Jamie Thomas and I  interpreted that phrase as "a celebration of the creativity, enterprise and innovation of young people around the world."  Accordingly, we agreed to celebrate the creativity, enterprise and innovation of the young people of Wales.

Wales's choral tradition is renowned but it is also a dancing nation.  Its classical dance company, Ballet Cymru has created a rich repertoire that features exciting new works such as Dylan Thomas – A Child’s Christmas, Poems and Tiger Eggs and Tir to the music of Cerys Matthews but also adaptations of Giselle, Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella for small casts in tiny theatres.  The company has presented those works in rural and inner-city venues around the United Kingdom and beyond.  Ballet Cymru's super-talented young artists will dance for us in their studio in Newport and their artistic director, Darius James will discuss their outreach work for the children and young people of Wales.

One of the leaders of the US space programme was an Anglesey man called Tecwyn Roberts.  He never forgot the junior school that had given him his start and he revisited it. at the height of his career.  One of the students of the school at the time of his visit was a little girl called Nia Roberts. Nia was inspired to read natural sciences at university.  She has also enjoyed a glittering career in science to inspire a new generation of school kids to follow her into STEM.

Tecwyn had to leave Wales for a career in space.  That is no longer necessary for Wales has a rapidly growing space sector which is attracting bright young men and women from around the world.  Representatives of that industry will outline some of the opportunities for new businesses in everything from telecommunications to remote sensing and mention the highly paid 

jobs that will be available to those who want to work in them.

All of that requires entrepreneurs ready to spot the opportunities and exploit them. Who better to talk about that infrastructure than Tom Burke, founder and CEO of the communications platform Haia. Tom will tell us how he developed Haia at M-SParc and how local financial and professional service providers have helped him to grow his business.

Tom, Nia, Darius and others will speak at a lunchtime seminar between 12:30 and 14:00 on 26 April 2022 that anyone anywhere in the world can join online.  Those who happen to be in M-Sparc on the day can also attend in person.  Register here to secure your place. There will also be an all-day exhibition at M-SParc on the Welsh space industry, Ballet Cymru, Haia and all sorts of other contributions to World IP Day in Wales and around the world. 

Further Reading

26 April 2022  Intellectual Property Office: Innovating for a Better Future: Intellectual property and youth

2 April 2022 Diwrnod Eiddo Deallusol y Byd / World Intellectual Property Day

March 2022  Nadine Hakizimana and Edward Kwakwa  Now’s the time for young people to switch on to intellectual property  WIPO Wire

28 Dec 2021  Jane Lambert World IP Day and Youth

Supporting Innovation and Creativity in North Wales

Jane Lambert

 

I have just started a new LinkedIn group called "ERGC/NWIP". "EDGC" is short for "Eiddo Deallusol Gogledd Cymru" which means "North Wales Intellectual Property".  I shall not insult readers' intelligence by telling them what the letters "NWIP" stand for. This new LinkedIn group is intended to be a forum and resource for everyone who is interested in innovation and creativity in North Wales in any capacity.  

Both the name of the group and its logo are provisional.  I am no graphic designer or branding expert. If anybody has a better idea for a name or logo I am open to suggestions.  I took the photo of the countryside near Caernarfon from the castle battlements under a lowering sky on a typical August day.  

The idea of a LinkedIn group is not mine but Sean Thomas's.  Sean is a patent attorney and inventor who was born and brought up on Anglesey and holds a degree from Bangor University.   He suggested the group at a seminar at the Menai Science Park which I chaired on 20 Sept 2019 (see Building an Enterprise Ecosystem on Anglesey 25 Sept 2019).

I was prompted to set up this group by an enquiry about trade marks from a company that already knew a lot about intellectual property,  It had previously instructed a patent attorney who used to practise in North Wales but has now retired to Scotland.  I also saw a report in the North Wales Chronicle about an project that combines artificial intelligence with drone technology that reminded me of the Welsh aviation pioneer William Frost who filed his own patent for a flying machine that he had invented in 1894 (see In William Frost's Footsteps 15 May 2021 LinkedIn and Patent Design and Trade Mark Filings in Wales  28 Nov 2019).  

The thought that crossed my mind was whether Frost would be able to access specialist IP advice if he were alive now.   He lived at Saundersfoot which is over 90 miles from Cardiff and Newport where most of the expertise in Wales on IP is concentrated.  Not a lot has changed in that regard since 1894.   

A LinkedIn group could help.  It is a great place for making contact with folk with skills and connections that you need. It is also a great place for gathering resources.  Every time I publish an article, deliver a presentation or even see an article that could be of value to knowledge-based businesses in North Wales I shall mention it to the group and encourage others to do the same.  At present most of those articles will be in English because I started learning Welsh from an online course only last summer.  I shall try to contribute in Welsh as well as English as I master that language. 

Anyone seeking more information about the group can visit it at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/9060289/, I shall gladly answer enquiries through LinkedIn or by phone on 020 7404 5252 during normal office hours.

What Every Startup and Small Business in Wales should know about IP

Wales from the International Space Station

Author Chris Hadfield NASA  Public Domain

Jane Lambert

I should first like to wish my readers in Wales and the rest of the world a Happy New Year. With continued lockdowns in Wales and many other parts of the world, there could not be a more depressing start. But the world will recover.  New businesses offering new products and services will continue to be launched creating new highly paid jobs in Wales.

The success of those products and services will depend on their branding, design, technology and creativity. It is those attributes that I call "intellectual assets" that gives one business a competitive advantage over all others.  A good idea by one competitor is likely to be adopted by others. To some extent that is a good thing and is to be encouraged because that is how science and society advance.  But not if the effect is to deprive the person who dreamt up the idea and invested in developing it from benefiting from it.  That would eventually stifle innovation and creativity.

It is obviously fair that an author designer. inventor or other intellectual asset creator who invests his or her time and money on developing a new product or service should recoup his or her investment and maybe earn a little extra on the side but consumers should not have to pay through the nose for the product or service forever.  The laws that strike a balance between the interests of the author, designer, inventor or other creator and the public are known collectively as "intellectual property". Examplers of intellectual property rights are the 20-year monopoly of the manufacturer, sale and use of a new invention known as a "patent" or the lifetime plus 70 years protection against unauthorized copying of a work of art or literature called a "copyright".

Earlier this week I was discussing possible topics for webinars for the Enterprise Hub with Emily Roberts of M-SParc (the Menai Science Park near Gaerwen on Anglesey).  I proposed two topics:

• One was on IP and funding similar to one that the Intellectual Property Office had run on 8 Dec 2020 entitled 'How to use your IP to unlock financial opportunities' to be presented on World Intellectual Property Day on 26 April 2021; and
• The other was the changes to intellectual property law following the expiry on 31 Dec 2020 of the transition period provided by the agreement for the UK's withdrawal from the EU.

Emily replied that both topics seemed engaging to her but she asked: " Is there any you’d think more appropriate for a smaller or start-up business?"

I replied with the synopsis of a 40-minute talk that I had given many times before and which I shall give again on 9 Feb to the Bradford Network:

• "What are your business's assets? Is it its good name, the experience of staff, quality of service, design or technology?
• Are you making full use of those assets? Licensing revenue, collateral for borrowing and means of attracting investment
• How can you secure those revenues? Trade marks for brands, patents for tech and design registration for the appearance of goods plus the free IP rights like copyright
• How do you set about getting those rights? How long does it take and how much does it cost?
• How do you face down challenges to your rights? Litigation and insurance
• How do you budget?
• What licensing and other revenues can you expect."

Obviously, a talk to entrepreneurs and other business owners in  Northwest Wales will have to be different from the one I would give to a similar audience in Yorkshire because the economies and cultures of the two regions are quite different even though some issues and solutions are universal.

Emily liked the proposal and drafted an Eventbrite card for the talk which she will publish when she has chosen a date and time for the event.  I for my part will draw up slides and a PDF handout designed specifically for businesses in Wales with such information as local advice and information services and useful websites that can be downloaded from Slideshare.

Anybody who wants to discuss this article or IP, in general, may call me during office hours on 020 7404 5252/  Like many other people I am working from home for the duration but our new phone system can forward your call to me wherever I happen to be at no extra cost.  Alternatively, you can send me a message through my contact form.  Incidentally, if you do call I would welcome a chance to practise my Welsh conversation.   I am halfway through an internet training course in Welsh, there are not too many Welsh speakers nearby and I can't visit Wales until it is safe and lawful to do so.