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Copy righters

ILEX Journal May 2010

 

"Intellectual property is all around and legal executives are well placed to advise clients on its role", finds Grania Langdon-Down..

What do the colour purple, a mobile phone ring tone and a triangular-shaped chocolate bar have in common? They are all trade marked.

With intellectual property (IP) becoming increasingly important in commercial transactions, identifying a company’s ‘intangible assets’ and ensuring they can be protected and commercialised is vital, whether the IP is in a brand name, invention or design – or in a colour, sound or shape, such as Cadbury’s purple when associated with chocolate bars, Nokia’s ‘Grand Vals’ ringtone and Toblerone’s iconic shape.

IP has a broad reach as a specialisation, covering patents, trade marks, designs and copyright, so developing an interest in this field could open up significant opportunities for legal executives to add real value to the service they offer clients, says ILEX member Andrew Beale, head of professional legal studies at Swansea
University and director of IP Wales. A keen supporter of the legal executive route into law, Mr Beale taught the ILEX course for a decade in the 1990s and took the membership exams so he knew what his students were going through. He sees the need for a more pragmatic approach to IP through his work with IP Wales, which advises Welsh businesses on IP matters, and as a consultant to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). ‘This is something the legal executives that I had the privilege of teaching were well qualified to offer,’ he says. ‘The way IP law is taught is primarily about the enforcement of negative rights – how you acquire a patent and how you enforce it. But we have found that most firms simply don’t have the financial muscle to enforce patents, so they need to be more open to other commercial strategies, such as licensing arrangements. ‘So legal executives who develop their knowledge in this area to help their clients with the practicalities of managing intellectual assets within their business plan will be doing them a real service.’

 

Intellectual capital

 

Tom Farrand, who chairs the public relations committee of the Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys and sits on its training committee, agrees. ‘People generally aren’t switched on enough about IP. Plenty of transactions go through without an appreciation of what is there and what isn’t. It is not a simple box-ticking exercise – you need to scratch below the surface because companies can be acquired on the basis of IP that isn’t as robust as it might be.’

Jackie Maguire, chief executive of Coller IP Management, technical specialists in IP business management, says IP needs to be taken seriously as a boardroom issue. ‘However, it needs to go further than IP. You need to think in terms of intellectual capital, which includes branding, the know-how in a company, the way it does business – all of which can be given a value.’

 

Priorities have also shifted with the recession. Ms Maguir says that the latest WIPO figures show a ‘worrying’ decline in international patent filings, which dropped by 4.5% in 2009. ‘One contributing factor is that the recession has made organisations reluctant to spend money on their IP when they have been forced into cutting costs,’ she says. ‘But no company, especially in a recession, can afford to have its ideas – its very lifeblood – stolen.’ more >