COVID -19 and World IP Day


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 Jane Lambert

 Although the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought havoc on long-planned celebrations of World Intellectual Property Day including those that had been announced by M-SParc (the Menai Science Park) in North Wales, nothing could have done more to ram home the importance of the day and its theme of innovation for a green future,

Before the pandemic, there was a temptation for our species to regard itself as somehow immune from environmental catastrophe, to concentrate on economic growth regardless of the impact on the atmosphere and water supplies and to postpone decisions on climate change until well into the future.  Well, COVID-19 shows that it can't.  The pandemic, which is thought to have originated in the so-called wet market in Wuhan, is as much an environmental calamity as the Winter floods in England or the fires in Australia.

Just as it is technology that is helping humanity to respond to COVID-19 in the search for diagnostic, therapies and vaccines to the video conferencing software that is holding businesses and communities together, so it will be technology upon which human beings must rely to combat other environmental challenges of the future.

M-SParc has decided not to abandon its seminar on green innovation but to conduct it online.   It believes green innovation offers a unique opportunity for businesses on Anglesey (which is sometimes called "energy island") and indeed the rest of the UK to create environmentally friendly products and services to the world.   One of the ways in which such businesses can market those products and services is through the WIPO Green platform, an online platform for technology exchange.  As I said in World Intellectual Property Day – April 26, 2020: Innovate for a Green Future on 2 March 2020, only one British company has appeared on the WIPO Green database.  It could not have been designed better for businesses in Wales.

Of course, good ideas need to be developed and Wales is fortunate to host Beacon Biorefining a consultancy with considerable experience of developing the sort of products and services that are listed in the WIPO Green database.  Rob Elias of that company will talk about how he can help businesses in Wales and the rest of the UK develop world-beating technologies.  Investment, licensing, sales and collaboration with overseas businesses that may need those technologies will throw up corporate and contractual issues which Andrea Knox of Knox Commercial Solicitors can help to resolve,   And as many of the new products and processes that Welsh businesses will create will require legal protection, Nigel Hanley of the Intellectual Property Office will discuss the ways in which applications for patents for environmentally friendly inventions can be fast-tracked through the "Green Channel" that the IPO and many foreign  patent offices provide,

The webinar takes place between 12:30 and 13:30 today.   I am chairing it,.  If you are not already registered for it, here is the registration link.   Happy World IP Day.

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