M-SParc's World IP Day Seminar: whom you can meet and what you can learn

 

Jane Lambert

I explained the importance of Word Intellectual Property Day and outlined Menai Science Park's plans to celebrate it in World Intellectual Property Day 2023 on 27 Jan 2023.  I introduced Anna Roberts of Explorage.com and mentioned some of the topics that we shall discuss in World Intellectual Property Day - M-SParc's Lunchtime Seminar on 9 April 2023.  In this article, I shall introduce the other speakers, anticipate what they will each talk about and advise readers on how they can register for, and participate in, the event.

As I said in my previous articles, the theme of this year's World Intellectual Property Day is "Women and IP: Accelerating Innovation and Creativity." The word "accelerating" is significant because it connotes contribution and cooperation, The seminar will focus not on matters that only interest women but on contributions from innovative and creative women that interest everybody.

For that reason, we offer an all-female panel.  The organizer of this year's IP Day event (like all previous ones) will be Emily Roberts, the Science Park's Outreach & Community Manager. The main speakers will be Anna Roberts whom I mentioned above, Anna Burke, Managing Director of Animated Technologies and Louise Carr, a patent attorney with Cameron IP.  I will introduce the speakers and chair the discussion. We also look forward to interventions and questions from the floor.

Emily is anxious for this event to be relevant and useful to everyone who attends.  She has found that many people who could have benefited from events like this one have been deterred by the fear that the topic will be too abstract or remote. She requires us to focus on the basics of intellectual property and illustrate its importance with real-life examples.

That is why Emily has invited two entrepreneurs to talk about their businesses.  They will identify the assets that give Explorage.com and Animated Technologies an advantage over their competitors. They will tell us how they protect their investment in those assets.  In response to any issues that may arise in the presentations or in enquiries from the floor, Louise will tell us how she and other attorneys can help.  I can chip in on any issues that the other panellists do not cover.

I will remain at the Science Park for a little while after the seminar in case someone wants a one-to-one conversation on a matter that he or she would prefer not to mention in public.  For those who are attending the event online, I shall be happy to make an appointment to talk by video link or phone.

If you want to attend this event you can do so by completing the Eventbrite card.  We are all looking forward to this event, seeing old acquaintances again and maybe making new ones. If you have any questions, call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during office hours or 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.

A Judicial Super Highway for North Wales

Author Dave Smethurst Licence CC BY-SA 2.0 Source Wikimedia Commons 

 

Jane Lambert

According to the updated guidance from the Department for Levelling Up, freeports are intended to attract external investment and stimulate innovation.  If the recently announced Anglesey Freeport achieves those objectives there will be a need for a cost-effective local forum for the resolution of business disputes.  Parties from that area now have the choice of litigating in London, Liverpool, Cardiff or possibly Mold which adds substantially to their costs.  The obvious solution is to extend para 1.1 of Practice Direction 57AA to the Caernarfon District Registry and the County Court at Caernarfon.

CPR57A and Practice Direction 57AA establish the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales.  These are the Royal Courts of Justice in London and the Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle District Registries and County Court hearing centres.  When they were first launched in 2017 the Chancellor referred to the Business and Property as a "judicial super highway" (see my article Launch of a Jusicial Super Highway  12 July 2017 IP Northwest).

The Business and Property Courts undertake the following work:

• the Admiralty Court, 
• the Business List, 
• the Commercial Court, 
• the Circuit Commercial Courts, 
• the Competition List, 
• the Financial List, 
• the Insolvency and Companies List, 
• the Intellectual Property List, 
• the Property, Trusts and Probate List, 
• the Revenue List, and 
• the Technology and Construction Court.

The County Court in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Preston also do all the work that falls under the jurisdiction of the courts and lists that make up the Business and Property Courts with a number of exceptions.

Caernarfon already has a Chancery District Registry which means that an intellectual property claim other than one concerning patents, registered designs, plant varieties, semiconductor topographies and trade marks could be issued out of the District Registry and County Court there.  In practice, any County Court claim would almost certainly be transferred to the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court in London ("IPEC"). It appears from the Circuit Commercial Courts in Wales page of the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website that the Circuit Commercial Court in Mold is part of the Business and Property Courts in Wales. Applications for interim injunctions in an IP case issued out of Caernarfon could therefore in theory be made to Judge Keyser KC or Judge Jarman KC sitting in Mold.   According to para 1.2 of the Intellectual Property Court Guide, small IP claims can be heard in Cardiff as well as Liverpool and London but not in North Wales.

The option for Welsh litigants of bringing their claims in Liverpool, London or elsewhere in England would cease were Wales to establish a separate court system (see my article "A Separate Welsh Legal Jurisdiction"  of 20 Feb 2021). In the eventuality, it would be imperative for the Caernarfon District Registry to become part of the Business and Property Courts in Wales and perhaps other Business and Property Court District Registries to be established in central and southwest Wales. As the Senedd  Cymru can now make primary legislation for Wales, the argument in favour of establishing a separate Welsh court system is likely to strengthen.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact page.

Innovation for a Stronger, Fairer and Greener Wales

Author User:Gdr Licence CC BY-SA 3.0 Source Wikimedia Commons
 

Jane Lambert

The Welsh Government published a new innovation strategy yesterday with the objectives of creating better jobs, improved health and care services, a greener environment and a more prosperous nation.  Those are to be achieved through innovation which is defined as "the creation and application of new knowledge to improve the world."  The strategy is to be implemented by an action plan which will be published later.

Education

Education is central to the strategy because "schools, colleges, universities and research organisations create knowledge through research" which can "lead to commercialisation, create societal value, and support a stronger economy."   The new Curriculum for Wales should prepare learners for work in knowledge-based careers and the opportunities and challenges of an ever-changing economy. A new Commission for Tertiary Education and Research (CTEE) should create a more strategic, collaborative, and joined-up education and research sector for universities and colleges.

Economy

The mission is "an economy that innovates for growth, collaborates across sectors for solutions to society’s challenges, adopts new technologies for efficiency and productivity, uses resources proportionately, and allows citizens to share wealth through fair work."  The Welsh Government acknowledges that the Welsh economy is integrated into that of the UK and that its innovation strategy must be compatible with the UK one.  However, there is still scope for Welsh initiatives in R&D funding, public sector procurement, small business research, digital and healthcare innovation and Global Wales which will be pursued. A particularly exciting development is a partnership with T-Hub in Hyderabad which is the world's biggest innovation campus. 

Health and Wellbeing

The mission for this sector is a "coherent innovation ecosystem where the health and social care sector collaborates with industry, academia and the third sector to deliver greater value and impact for citizens, the economy, and the environment."  The pandemic occasioned clinicians to develop new ways of delivering health and social care which were discussed in  The NHS Wales COVID-19 Innovation and Transformation Study Report,  The strategy proposes greater alignment of the health and social care innovation ecosystems, coordinating health and social care with the wider economy and community.  Social Care Wales is developing a social care research, innovation and improvement which is set out in A healthier Wales: long term plan for health and social care.  Health and social care priorities will dovetail with the initiatives in the economy, education climate and nature.

Climate and Nature

This mission covers meeting Wales's climate change objectives.  Proposals include reducing reliance on fossil fuels, making greater use of renewals, developing new power storage technologies and substituting hydrogen for hydrocarbons.  Existing plans for future gas and electricity networks will be implemented. The adoption of new technologies for heating buildings will be encouraged, particularly retrofitting for older structures. Shared vehicle use will be promoted in order to reduce the need for individual vehicle ownership.  Other initiatives include greater use of recycling of household waste such as using dirty nappies as a road construction material and developing the Welsh timber industry.

Comment

In contrast to the UK Innovation Strategy which I reviewed in NIPC Invention on 12 Aug 2021,  the Welsh Innovation Strategy is ambitious but doable.   The UK strategy had the aim of transforming the UK into a science and tech superpower by 2030 - pure boosterism of the kind promoted by the last Prime Minister but one.  As I said in my review:

"the idea that British companies will be competing with the likes of Huawei, Mitsubishi and Samsung in such fields as artificial intelligence, mobile telecoms, consumer electronics or any other new technology is as fanciful as the garden bridge, an airport in the Thames estuary and a bridge to Northern Ireland."

If I have any criticism of the Welsh strategy it is that it bothers to mention the UK Innovation Strategy.  There are lots of good ideas in the Welsh strategy such as the coordination of the education, economy, healthcare and climate and nature missions and the use of universities and other educational institutions as centres of research. 

Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.  

Negotiating Consultancy and Licensing Agreements with Universities

Author Andrew Woodvine Licence CC BY-SA 2.0 Source Wikimedia Commons

Jane Lambert

On Thursday I delivered a seminar on intellectual property law to the teams working on research, innovation, commercialization and partnership support for Bangor University.  I wrote about my visit in The Day I went to Bangor in NIPC News on 24 Feb 2023.  My audience included professionals who negotiate licence and consultancy agreements with third parties.

Licence agreements are made between owners of intellectual property rights and those who wish to use the technology protected by such rights.  Universities acquire considerable technical and scientific knowledge through research carried out by their academics and graduate students much of which can be useful for business. Where such research is protected by patents, unregistered design rights, supplementary unregistered designs, trade secrecy law or other intellectual property rights the university may license businesses and entrepreneurs to use the research.

Consultancy agreements are made between experts and those who wish to use their expertise.  Academics and graduate students often acquire considerable expertise in an area of science or technology through their research.   Businesses and entrepreneurs who wish to use such expertise may contract with the university to consult such an academic or student.  They may ask him or her to design or test something or carry out further sponsored research.

The licensing and consultancy services that are available from Bangor University are indexed on the Business Services page of its website.   These consist of a Collaboration Hub, Intellectual Property (IP) and Commercialization, Conferencing and Business Dining.  The services available from the Collaboration Hub that are most likely to interest businesses include knowledge exchange, collaborative research projects, consultancy and access to the University's facilities.  Those available from Intellectual Property and Commercialization are licensing and spinouts.

Most universities in Wales and indeed the rest of the United Kingdom as well as many more abroad offer similar services to businesses.   When negotiating with them, it is prudent to take the following steps.

• First, whenever you disclose confidential information to a third party make sure that he or she knows that the information is confidential and that you are confiding it to him or her in circumstances giving rise to an obligation of confidence.   You must set out precisely how the information may be used, who may see it and, in the case of a disclosure of documents when you need them back.   I gave a lot of information about this topic in  Trade Secrets and Non-Disclosure Agreements on 1 April 2018.
• Secondly, summarize the terms that you and the university may agree subject to contract in a document known as "heads of terms" or "heads of agreement".  Unless you and the university agree otherwise, most if not all the terms should be non-binding.  Even though the instrument should be non-binding it is a good idea for both parties to sign it so that there can be no doubt as to each party's understanding.   There is a good example of such an agreement and some explanatory notes on the Gov.UK website.
• The sample agreement is one of several that have been drawn up by a committee chaired by Sir Richard Lambert known as the Lambert Toolkit.   I attended and contributed to one of the drafting meetings of that committee.  The core of the toolkit consists of  7 draft agreements which are used by Bangor and many other universities.  Guidance on those draft agreements can be obtained from a "Decision Guide."
• A licence agreement is likely to be drawn up by one of the parties from scratch.   Tactically it is usually better for the licensee to draft it rather than rely on the university,   A typical licence will include the names and addresses of the parties, recitals on the background to the agreement, the grant, an interpretation clause, a description of rights granted, the territory and the term, the consideration for the licence, remedies for non-payment or delay, the licensor's obligations and the licensee's, provisions for termination, rights on termination, whole agreement, severance and other boilerplate clauses, provision for the service of notices and notifications, choice of law and jurisdiction.    

It is prudent to enlist the help of a lawyer or patent or trade mark attorney for at least some of the stages of the negotiation and drafting.   Such a lawyer can be a barrister specializing in intellectual property and technology law instructed under the public access scheme or a solicitor with expertise in those areas of the law.

Anyone wishing to discuss this article or its contents may call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form at other times.

Aria Studios - its Importance to Northwest Wales

 

Author Tim Felce Licence CC BY-SA 2.0  Source Wikimedia Commons

 

Jane Lambert

Reminiscing about his childhood in  Holyhead, Celyn Jones said that there were very few career opportunities for school leavers.  They could work on the railways or Irish Sea ferries, at an aluminium smelter or at a nuclear power station.  He made those remarks in an interview to celebrate the opening of Aria's impressive new film studios near Llangefni on 26 Jan 2023.  He concluded his interview by remarking that young people in Anglesey now enjoyed the option of "going down the studio."  

As a Cambriophile, his remark resonated with me.  For most of my life, I have witnessed the gradual industrial decline and consequential depopulation of Northwest Wales.  That decline has been arrested by the Menai Science Park at Gaerwen, the Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre at Bangor and most recently the Aria Film Studios,  Each of those initiatives has stimulated the launch and growth of new businesses in the creative and science-based industries.  In turn, those businesses have generated many well-paid jobs 

After discussing some of the intellectual property and data protection issues of film-making at the science park earlier in the day, I was invited to Aria's opening ceremony.  My visit began with a tour of the studios.  The TV series Rownd a Rownd is recorded at the studios and visitors were invited to inspect the sets.  The first set that I visited was labelled "Tŷ K" which means "K's house" in Welsh. A lady and gentleman were on the set and after wishing them a "good evening" I enquired who was "K".  The lady introduced herself as the actor who plays K in the TV series. They explained that the series is set in Menai Bridge, a few miles south of Llangefni.

As Rownd a Rownd is a Welsh language show I had been encouraged to watch it by one of my teachers on a Sadwrn Siarad (Saturday conversation) course.  I had actually watched one or two episodes on the BBC iPlayer when my Welsh was a good deal better than it is now. I knew it had a substantial following in Wales as had another longstanding Welsh language TV series, Pobl y Cwm.  I visited several other sets and met other members of the Rownd a Rownd cast.  One of them told me that every aspect of the production was conducted in Welsh including technical matters. Upon my asking about the technical side one of the guides took me to the makeup department.  The lady in charge discussed some of the challenges of her job such as how to replicate with makeup the healing of a scar or or bruise.

Aria has two massive studios and one of them was used for a reception.  A stage had been erected at one end of the studio above which there was a massive screen.  Celyn Jones had been interviewed on that stage. Other guests from Creative Wales, Bangor University and the Welsh film and TV industry delivered speeches from the stage. Recorded messages from the First Minister of Wales, the local MP and other speakers were flashed on the screen.  Nearly all the speeches were delivered in Welsh.  Simultaneous translation was available but I chose not to use it.  This was a rare opportunity for me as a student of Welsh living outside Wales to hear live wall-to-wall Welsh and I did not want to waste it.  I think I got the gist of most of the speeches and conversations but I must have missed some of the content.

One of the characters I have encountered through learning Welsh is Gareth the Orangutan.  My favourite Gareth clip is his drive around Caernarfon with the actor, Owain Arthur.  Mr Arthur had been one of the speakers at the reception and I encountered him just as I was leaving.  I reminded him of his video with Gareth which seemed to amuse him.  He retorted that he was about to try some of the chips which had been provided by the local restaurant chain, Dylans.  The significance of "chips" is that Gareth likes chips though as he explained in another clip about his work experience at a chip shop he can't eat them because they are too hot.  One of the tunes that Gareth and Mr Arthur played and sang along to was Fflipin Lyfio Chips which does not require translation any more than Llareggub.

Aria's collaborators include

•  Cymru Creadigol (Creative Wales), the Welsh creative industries body 
• Ffilm Cymru Wales, the national film agency 
• S4C,  the Welsh language TV channel 
• Screen Alliance Wales which is concerned with recruitment and training for the film and TV industries, 
• Rondo the film and TV programme marker, and 
• the Universities of Bangor and South Wales.  

The websites of those organizations contain a lot of information on the Welsh film industry and the facilities, services and personnel that are available for film and TV makers in Wales.  More is available from Creadigol Cymru's Filming in Wales web page.

As this is an intellectual property publication, it is worth mentioning that films are works in which copyright subsists pursuant to s.1 (1) (b) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.  "Film” for this purpose means "a recording on any medium from which a moving image may by any means be produced" (s.5B (1)).   The "author" of a film is its producer and principal director by virtue of s.9 (2) (ab),  S.10 (1A) provides that a film shall be treated as a work of joint authorship unless the producer and the principal director are the same person.  Subject to certain exceptions, copyright subsists in a film for 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the death occurs of the last to die of the principal director, the author of the screenplay, the author of the dialogue, or the composer of music specially created for and used in the film (S.13B (2)).  Actors' performances whether on a stage or in a studio are also protected from unauthorized filming, taping or broadcasting by a separate intellectual property right known as rights in performances pursuant to Part II of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

There is now a small but growing corps of intellectual property advisors in Northwest Wales,  They include patent and trade mark attorneys such as Sean Thomas, solicitors like Andrea Knox and Johnty Gordon and tax advisors like Steve Livingston.  I support all those professionals and their clients.   Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact page. 

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.