NIPC News

(c) 2025 Menai Science Park  Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert I discovered M-SParc  (the Menai Science Park) while on holiday in Beaumaris in 2018.  I wrote about it in  M-SParc - Anglesey's Science Park   on 29 Aug 2018.  I got to know it better when I attended the Anglesey Business Festival  later in the year.  I helped the park contribute to World Intellectual Property Day on 26 April 2019 (see Jane Lambert  Celebrating World IP Day at M-SParc: Basic Tips for Startups and other Small Businesse s 29 April 2019,  NIPC Cymru ).  The event was so successful that Emily Roberts , who was then in charge of Operations and Customer Experience at M-SParc, decided to hold a similar event on 11 November to be known as " Wales Enterprise Day." This year's Wales Enterprise Day coincided with the World Intellectual Property Organization's worldwide celebration of examiners .  M-SParc decided to combine both celebrations with a lu...

Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert On 26 April 2022, the world celebrated World Intellectual Property Day .  That is a worldwide festival to celebrate the entry into force of the World Intellectual Property Organization Convention , the international agreement that established the World Intellectual Property Organization *"WIPO").   I took part in two of the celebrations: i presented a webinar for the Liverpool Law Society entitled  "Intellectual Property Law after Brexit and onwards”; and  I chaired the Menai Science Park's celebration of the Creativity, Enterprise and innovation of the Young People of Wales. Both events had unexpected last-minute hitches which the organizers took in their stride.  It is fair to say that both events went well, I had originally intended to cover the topics that I had discussed in my presentation  How Brexit has changed IP Law   and handout IP after Brexit .  On the morning of the talk, I learned that there...

By LiverpoolFitzy2009 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6823465   Jane Lambert I first mentioned the Menai Science Park in  M-SParc - Anglesey's Science Park   on 29 Aug 2018 and have followed its progress ever since. Over lockdown, the park's Enterprise Hub has presented some excellent webinars.  Today's Cross Border Collaboration Masterclass   by Sam Marchetti  was one of the best. Sam is founder of Consortia Co  which assists businesses to bid for work from the public and private sectors.  He began his talk by asking each of us what we did for a living,  There were about 10 of us at one point and we ranged from a senior innovation manager at Bangor University to a student. Sam described the student as the most fortunate of us because his options were unlimited. Having ascertained his audience he angled his presentation to meet our priorities.   Using animated slides one of which ...

Standard YouTube Licence 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 dia...

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 ...

Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert One of the topics that were discussed at the 14th session of the Advisory Committee on Enforcement was building respect for intellectual property.  On that topic we heard presentations by, and received handouts from, Rajiv Aggarwal of India, Hedvig Bengston of Norway, Maya Al'Azri of Oman,  Ray Augusto Meloni García of Peru and Liliana Vieru of Moldova. For our entertainment and education, the WIPO secretariat erected a little video lounge called the ACE cinema which showed anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting videos like "Knock off Nigel" which was one of the most amusing.  I particularly love the expression on Nigel's face as his girlfriend dumps the "watch that he found in the street" in his beer,  There were other "Knock off Nigel" videos including one from the office . Although the "Knock off Nigel" films were witty, not everybody liked them,  In  "Why I Hate the Knock off Nigel A...

Jane Lambert According to the Intellectual Property Office's latest  Facts and Figures , there were 382 applications for UK patents from Wales in 2017. That was more than the 158 from Northern Ireland and 296 Northeast England but considerably less than the 2,585 applications from London and the 2,067 from the Southeast. Developments that may make a difference are the opening of the Menai Science Park (M-SParc)    in Angelsey on 1 March 2018 and the construction of the Aberystwyth Innovation and Enterprise Campus .  Like the Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre in Bangor, these are initiatives of two of Wales's research universities to stimulate innovations and economic growth in their local areas. There are signs that those initiatives are working.  I attended "Pitch Perfect" at M-SParc on 1 March 2019 and wrote about the event in A Good Way to spend St David's Day   (2 March 2019).  There were some very good proposals indeed and I thin...

Jane Lambert In Resources for Inventors and other Startups in Northwest Wales   5 Feb 2019 NIPC Inventors Club I mentioned the Menai Science Park ("M-SParc") at Gaerwen in Anglesey and funding from the Development Bank of Wales . I did not, however, discuss other funding opportunities. Coinciding with the science park's first anniversary, M-SParc's Enterprise Hub will hold a pitching event known as "Pitch Perfect" in conjunction with Be the Spark  on St David's day between 17:00 and 19:30.  The organizers describe this event as "an evening of opportunities to pitch, chances to wow secret investors, the tools to vote on other pitches, and get feedback on your idea. It's not just for those who want to pitch; this will be an event you don't want to miss." According to the Eventbrite card, there will be three pitching opportunities: "FLASH PITCH - Two pots of funding up to £1,000 are available ON THE NIGHT for you...

Jane Lambert Yesterday I spoke at a workshop on sustainable packaging and waste.  It took place at  Tŷ Menai conference centre in Parc Menai  just outside Bangor, There were many eminent speakers including Rob Elias , Director of the Biocomposites Centre of Bangor University, Selwyn Owen  of Beacon Biorefining Hugh Jones of WRAP Cymru , David Walker of Business Wales , Dewi Rowlands of Bangor University and Wyn Griffiths of the Pontio Centre FabLab which I discussed in The Pontio Centre: A Resource for Inventors, Designers and Makers in North Wales   14 Dec 2018 NIPC Inventors Club, I talked about intellectual property .  As I was called to the lectern 10 minutes before lunch was due to be served, I had to condense a 30-minute presentation into 10.  That was probably a good thing as I focused on essentials,  I explained what was meant by intellectual property, set out the IP toolkit and gave the audience two of my best tips: How t...

Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert While I have been on holiday in Beaumaris I have discovered this interesting initiative by Bangor University which opened on 1 March 2018. It is a science park on the main road between the Britannia and Menai suspension bridges and Holyhead. A strategic location between the nearest pert to Dublin and the Northern Powerhouse cities of Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool and not far from Anglesey Airport which offers regular flights to Cardiff. According to the park's website it offers "laboratory, office, and clean workshop space, created with input from companies of all sizes who work in the science and technology sectors with a focus on Low Carbon."  It appears that several businesses have already taken up that offer. I have already subscribed M-SParc's newsletter and I shall contact it formally after I return to work on Monday to learn more about the park and its tenants.