Lawyer Monthly Magazine - May 2019 Edition

11 Monthly Round-Up www. lawyer-monthly .com MAY 2019 A House of Commons summit has thrown the spotlight on how British businesses need to edu- cate themselves on intel- lectual property (IP) and how it can help them succeed in a tough eco- nomic climate – or if Brit- ain leaves the EU. Top IP institutions, law firms, universities and business leaders from the automotive industry attended the confer- ence which was hosted by the Intellectual Prop- erty Awareness Network (IPAN) and backed by the leading IP business intelligence solutions and open, online training courses, PatSnap. The aim of the summit, held ahead of the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s (WIPO) World IP Day, was to en- courage the influential attendees to work to- gether to develop policy and support education that will help British busi- nesses harness the ben- efits of IP to support in- novation in order to stay competitive in a global marketplace. Intellectual Property Vital for British Economic Growth IP LAW Duncan Clark, director of Academy at Patsnap, said: “It is a well-known fact that 80% of a com- pany’s value is in intan- gible assets such as IP, but unfortunately many British companies aren’t making it part of their business strategy. In- stead, they’re only learn- ing about IP when it’s far too late or when it be- comes a legal issue.” “If we can create the en- vironment to help British businesses utilise IP in their strategy from the outset, we will have a strong economic advantage over our competitors. This will be particularly useful to the British automotive industry which needs to find a way to stay afloat when Britain leaves the EU.” David Wong is senior tech and innovation manager at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, represent- ing the views of the UK’s £82billion automotive in- dustry. He commented: “Automotive is often seen as the “sunset in- dustry” but I beg to dif- fer. I see something more exciting and exhilarating than ever before and IP is the fulcrum of this trans- formation.” Stephen Lambert is head of the automotive elec- trification at McLaren Applied Technologies, a leader in the power elec- tronic sector contributing nearly £50billion to the UK economy. He added: “In our world, we face rapid development, we have to fix problems quickly and have an innovative mindset. But IP isn’t in the average mindset of an engineer because filing patents mean you lose your competitive advan- tage. We need to use IP more to retain our inno- vation culture and pro- tect what we have.” John Ogier, chair and convenor of the Finance, Business and Economics Group, IPAN, said: “IP is based on the power of innovative imagination. The world is changing fast and motoring needs to be reimagined for the 21st century alongside the fifth industrial revolu- tion, which has seen the introduction of AI and globalisation.” Chris Skidmore, minister of state for universities, science, research and in- novation, said: “Britain is a world leader because of IP. It underpins every- thing we do in the econ- omy itself and is funda- mental to this country’s success. We need to pro- vide a smooth and effec- tive IP system regardless of Brexit and we need to be prepared for all even- tualities, whatever the outcome. IP is not a “Cin- derella” subject in gov- ernment and we need to work together as one single IP community.” According to WIPO, one of the biggest mistakes start-ups make is failing to create a well-thought- out IP strategy. For this reason, in 2017 PatSnap launched the first-ever free online Academy for R&D organisations, inventors and entrepre- neurs to educate them- selves about IP and why it needs to be an inte- gral part of their business strategy. Duncan Clark added: “Countless start-ups make the fatal mistake of seeing IP as a ‘bolt- on’, with many only coming across it when they’re faced with a le- gal battle. The video-led courses PatSnap runs on the Academy are not about making people le- gal experts – rather, they educate them on the basics of what they really need to know in order to be able to innovate and commercialise success- fully. Unfortunately, many start-ups fail because they do not harness the benefits of IP.” Since 2017, Academy by PatSnap has collabo- rated with some of the world’s top IP experts in order to provide free, open intellectual prop- erty education to its community of over 3,000 members. Academy was recently welcomed as a member of IPAN (Intellec- tual Property Awareness Network), a non-profit network of organisations and individuals that cam- paigns to raise awareness and understanding of in- tellectual property.