Innovation, inspiration and IP

December 2006 was an innovation-focused month. Not only did the pan-European IP summit return to europe after a two-year break, but the Financial Times also hosted its first Innovate conference in London. CPA Global’s Charlotte Presse provides a round up of both events

IP SUMMIT 2006: Brussels

7-8 December
Two years after the first IP Summit was created by Premier Cercle, this two-day event attracted more than 600 IP professionals from a breadth of IP backgrounds. Speakers including Microsoft’s Marshall Phelps, General Electric’s Todd Dickenson, OHIM’s Wubbo de Boer (above) and Zacco’s Tove Graulund (previously Arla Foods) provided the background topics for networking and opportunities for deliberation. But the Summit also brought members of the European Commission face-to-face with industry practitioners, a particularly insightful exercise, which sparked much debate between the two parties on the second day of plenary sessions. Delegates who attended the Summit commented afterwards that the discussions clarified the need to educate the European governing bodies by helping them to understand the IP process and its fundamental complexities.

The afternoon break-out sessions were definitely the highlight, offering delegates a chance to interact with experts. However, despite the number of fascinating topics within the schedule, the one faltering aspect was that the workshops were not repeated, so there was no opportunity to revisit any that may have run congruently. CPA Global hosted its own session with speakers Dan McCurdy from ThinkFire and Microsoft’s Marshall Phelps. The workshop was well attended – delegates were interested to hear Marshall and Dan’s perspective on effective licensing and patent valuation.

In the discussion, Marshall reiterated the difficulties associated with patent valuation, but also emphasised that, in his experience, businesses should be asking themselves two key questions before researching the options for licensing or valuing patents, namely:

1) Is the patent valid?

2) Is it being infringed by a multi-million dollar product or company?

The afternoon break-out sessions were definitely the highlight, offering delegates a chance to interact with experts

Dan and Marshall were also both in agreement that where licensing is concerned ‘one size doesn’t fit all’; every scenario is different.

For an event covering such a broad selection of IP topics, time constraints meant that delegates could only scratch the surface on many of them. Perhaps this will prompt the event’s return in 2007? We’ll keep you posted.


FT INNOVATE 2006: London

4-5 December
Created by the Financial Times and hosted by IBM, this two-day conference brought with it a wealth of distinguished speakers, representing some of the world’s most innovative companies, including BT Group, Whirlpool Corporation, Pfizer, easyGroup and 3M.

The conference focused on how to create innovation for business growth by driving an innovation culture within businesses themselves. Art Fry, corporate scientist for 3M and inventor of the Post-it Note shared his experiences at 3M by demonstrating how the company works to nurture innovation. Meanwhile, Mark Bross, CTO at BT Group, provided an interesting presentation, outlining how important joint ventures and licensing arrangements can be in modern business practice.

The excellent bank of speakers and insightful presentations provided a valuable look at the inception of IP for all delegates. Although this was not strictly an IP-related event, many IP questions did surface, and it will be interesting to see whether the relationship between IP and research and development is explored further in future events.
 

For retrospective information on either of these events, visit www.ftinnovate.com and www.ipsummit.info


This article first appeared in IP Review, issue 17