UKITA’s Black Country branch recently held a seminar on Intellectual Property. Branch vice chair, Sharon Kendal of Blue Orange Marketing, provides a summary of the event.
The event was sponsored by the Institute for Innovation & Enterprise (IIE) which is part of the University of Wolverhampton, with whom the branch has organised a number of successful joint events over the last 2 years.
Higgs & Sons kindly offered us their facilities at their new and impressive offices in Brierley Hill, giving some members a chance for a bit of shopping in the Merry Hill Centre before popping across the road to the event! Higgs & Sons, an active member of UKITA, kindly provided the meeting room as well as drinks during the event.
Intellectual Property is an important issue for any business, and in particular for IT companies who, for example, may be coding software or building websites. The two speakers planned the event very well by making it interactive, using exercises to break up the presentation – it certainly got delegates thinking and talking! There were over 20 delegates (members from the Black Country, Staffordshire and Shropshire branches plus visitors) and we were seated around small tables of 3 to help with networking and the group exercises.
The speakers were Amy Hylton, a solicitor in Intellectual Property and in drafting business terms and conditions with Higgs & Sons, and Gary Lennon who runs Ideas2Reality providing consultancy services to businesses in the area of capitalising Intellectual Property as well as tools and supporting services for entrepreneurs.
Amy explained the various types of Intellectual Property including Trademarks, Patents, Copyright, and Design Rights. Delegates were particularly interested in the process of trade marking and the costs involved. Exercises in identifying the different intellectual property from a coffee jar, matching inventions with the type of intellectual property protection, and discussing who owns the copyright/intellectual property rights in a number of scenarios helped to reinforce her explanations.
Gary’s presentation included two real, local case studies: Winning Moves and Classroom Medics. In the case of Winning Moves, he explained how an Intellectual Property audit, training and the creation of an asset register enabled the company to place intellectual property as an intangible asset on their balance sheet. The process has ensured that intellectual property is now an integral part of their company strategy.
In the case of Classroom Medics, owner Tom Warrender explained how he set up a business to promote the varied professions in medicine to school children through science-related activities and workshops. However, a year into his growing business he received a legal letter from the Olympics Committee advising that he must stop using ‘Get Set’ (part of his original company name) as they had a trade mark on this phrase, and he had to remove any reference to Olympics/Olympian in his materials. Tom explained that, over the course of the following months, he had no choice but to rebrand. This case study in particular was a stark warning to all businesses to check out company / product names when you start a business and to seriously consider trade marks and protecting your Intellectual Property early on.
Overall, this was an excellent seminar with all delegates certainly leaving with a clearer understanding about Intellectual Property and how it may affect their business.