HoC holds summit ahead of World IP Day
A summit at the UK House of Commons has highlighted the importance of placing IP at the heart of business strategy in an increasingly difficult economic climate.
Held yesterday, April 24, the summit was hosted by the Intellectual Property Awareness Network (IPAN) and sponsored by Patsnap, an IP analytics company that also provides online training courses.
The meeting saw the gathering of IP institutions, law firms, universities and automotive industry representatives ahead of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s World IP Day on Friday, April 26.
One of the major themes discussed at the conference was the importance to British businesses of prioritising IP ahead of Brexit.
Chris Skidmore, UK minister of state for universities, science, research and innovation, said the UK needed to “provide a smooth and effective IP system regardless of Brexit and we need to be prepared for all eventualities, whatever the outcome”.
Duncan Clark, director of Patsnap's learning portal, academy, noted that “it is a well-known fact that 80% of a company’s value is in intangible assets such as IP, but unfortunately many British companies aren’t making it part of their business strategy”.
“If we can create the environment to help British businesses utilise IP in their strategy from the outset, we will have a strong economic advantage over our competitors,” he added.
“This will be particularly useful to the British automotive industry which needs to find a way to stay afloat when Britain leaves the EU,” Clark said.
Stephen Lambert, head of automotive electrification at McLaren Applied Technologies, said that “IP isn’t in the average mindset of an engineer because filing patents means you lose your competitive advantage”.
“We need to use IP more to retain our innovation culture and protect what we have,” he argued.
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