NIPC News

WIPO Author Emanuel Berrod Licence CC BY-SA 4.0   Jane Lambert The World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO")  describes an intellectual property audit as a tool for identifying "potential IP assets", that is to say, protectable  intellectual assets . An IP audit helps to uncover unused or under-utilized assets, determine ownership of those assets and warn against possible conflicts with intellectual property owners or potential infringers.  Information on the types of IP audit, preparing for such an audit and carrying it out is available on the Intellectual Property page of the WIPO website .  More detailed information can be found in Module 10   of IP Panorama .    The WIPO categorized IP audits as follows: " General-purpose  This is broadest type of IP audit, used by new companies or those considering implementing new IP policies, standards or procedures. It is also suitable for companies implementing new marketing approa...

Intellectual Property Office Crown copyright, Licence Intellectual Property Office Jane Lambert One of the recommendations of Prof. Hargreaves's review of intellectual property and growth  which was commissioned and largely implemented by the Coalition government in 2011 was that "The IPO should draw up plans to improve accessibility of the IP system to smaller companies who will benefit from it. This should involve access to lower cost providers of integrated IP legal and commercial advice." The Intellectual Property Office has tried to carry out that recommendation by developing support tools for use by academics, business owners, entrepreneurs, investors, professional advisors and other members of the public.  There is now a portal for those tools on the government's website at  https://www.ipo.gov.uk/ip-support/ . The portal looks like this: There are 9 colour coded icons: IP Equip IP Heakthcheck B2B Toolkit ...

Will Roebuck Jane Lambert In response to my article on patent revocation , Will Roebuck wrote: "Thanks for posting Jane - given that we want to attract more (and probably much younger) business entrepreneurs into UK, post Brexit (particularly in the Northern Powerhouse region) what's your recommended advice for choosing the best patent/IP legal expert? What do start-up entrepreneurs need to look for in a good IP lawyer?" Here is my reply.  Will, this is for you. The first thing to say is that intellectual property is far too important to be left to IP lawyers and patent and trade mark attorneys. IP should be on the curriculum of every business school in the country. Every entrepreneur, investor, business owner and manager should know how the law protects his or her brands , designs, technology and creative output and how to leverage such protection for the benefit of his or her business. If you do not already have such knowledge and experie...