NIPC News

Standard youtube Licence Jane Lambert According to Francis Gurry. the Director-General of the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) the UN specialist agency for intellectual property, today is World Yoga Day,  Dr Gurry described it as India's gift to the world.   I knew yoga originated in India and I shall take his word that it is a gift as I have never practised it myself. Dr Gurry says that yoga is connected with IP because it promotes creativity and innovation.  I can understand how that might be even though I do not practise yoga because my brain works much more efficiently and I get good ideas whenever I exercise another discipline that trains body and mind, namely classical ballet.   As Juvenal put it," orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano." Dr Gurry's term as Director-General is due to end soon.  He has done much for WIPO over the years including setting up and running the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre which ke...

Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert Hardly a week goes by without a request for help from an inventor, entrepreneur or other innovator in Africa, Asia or Latin America as well as my own or some other advanced country. Obtaining legal protection for a brand, design, technology or work of art or literature is difficult enough even in the UK. In a less developed country it is so much harder.  Usually, all I can do when I get such a request is to direct the enquirer to his or her national intellectual property office, a local patent or trade mark attorney or lawyer or, occasionally, an inventor's club. The reason why those enquirers seek my help is that legal protection for a product or service is a prerequisite for market success.  Without it countless ideas that could improve the human condition lie unused.  That is obviously bad for the creator or innovator whose life could have been transformed  had he or she taken the product or service to market  but ...