16 January 2017, 9 am
I speak with another of my EPO conference panellists, and her colleague from the IP Awareness Network. By way of context for my panel topic, they remind me how difficult it is to get universities to engage with IP. Universities are too busy nurturing brilliant minds to worry about what happens when the brilliant minds come up with marketable ideas. We agree we must aim for a world in which every university mentions IP in its prospectus, and potential students choose their degree courses based on the elegance of the IP policy. We also agree that the barrier to achieving such a world is that IP is basically not sexy enough. Despite the efforts of many stunningly sexy patent attorneys over the decades. Students look for careers advice and job centres, diversity initiatives, counselling and support schemes, influential student unions. They look for drinking opportunities, shuttle buses to the nearest nightclub, on-site coffee shops and fast food outlets. They do not typically leaf through prospectuses seeking photos of glamorous IP-related activities. We think perhaps we should train up one or two IP “ambassadors” for each university. Then we can send them in among the normal students, to spread the word about IP and to convert other students into a similar state of IP readiness. Perhaps “missionaries” might be a more appropriate term than “ambassadors”, so long as we could find students with sufficient zeal to turn IP into a mission. Alternatively, we could just bombard universities with IP information, delivered by drones straight to their halls of residence. A drone is a less risky proposition than a student who cares enough about IP to turn it into an undergraduate mission, and less likely to need therapy afterwards. Another good idea would be to make IP part of the curriculum, in all subjects, even the ones that patent attorneys have traditionally regarded as insufficiently serious to warrant attention. It would only require one research topic, one measly module dripping with accreditation points, to make every student engage with this important commercial tool. What IP would Virgil have had in his works, had he had access to proper IP training, and when would it have expired? How has IP affected the psychological development of vulnerable scientists? Name some of the great artists who depicted IP in their works. Create a dramatic piece about exhaustion of rights. That type of thing.
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11 January 2017
I hold a teleconference with the panellists I will be moderating at the EPO conference. I explain how my moderation is going to work. I tell them it is unlikely to be moderate but it will be Fierce. They do not seem as intimidated as I would have liked. Like all good chairmen, I tell them what questions I am going to ask them and what answers they are going to give. Then like all good panellists, they tell me that actually, they intend to give completely different answers. Like all good chairmen, I pretend to agree with them. Then I promise to send them a summary of who I am going to ask which questions. And the summary will be in line with my original intentions and there will be nothing they can do about it. After the teleconference, I enjoy watching emails come in promising funds for us to build a new Careers in Ideas website. Just after Christmas we sent a grovelling email to our IP Inclusive Charter signatories, and many of them were glad of the opportunity to do something straightforward in response, like donating funds, rather than having to host an event or find a speaker or write a blog. These kind people are donating many hundreds of pounds so that we can tell the UK’s bright-eyed school pupils about careers in IP, before they realise that careers in accountancy are easier to get. Most people say Yes, no problem, here’s loads of dosh, it’s a Good Cause. But some people say Hang on a minute, shouldn’t there be a bit more paperwork about this? There would be more paperwork, of course, if we weren’t powered entirely by volunteers in their spare time. But we are. So there isn’t. I will just have to live with the fact that this limits our funding options. 10 January 2017, 3.30 pm
Catastrophe! Unlucky Gary announces that he is leaving CIPA. Unlucky Gary has been Mr Davies’s PA for over two years, but that is not the only reason he is called Unlucky. The other reason is far too complicated to recount here but it appears to involve Gary being on the radio. Mr Davies was so tickled by the story that he employed Gary straight away, and it was a match made in heaven until Unlucky Gary was head-hunted by another god with a bigger bank balance. Mr Davies is no longer quite so tickled. I send Gary an email saying how sad I am and how much we will miss him. What I really want to do is hurl abuse at him for deserting us. I want to warn him not to even think about running off with the CIPA Stapler Refilling Policy and using it elsewhere. I want to shout at him that it is no good doing all this useful stuff for people, like booking their taxis and hotels and train tickets and conference places, and organising their diaries for them, if you are just going to waltz off into the sunset one day leaving them incapable of managing their own lives. It is irresponsible, I want to say. Who is going to circulate my emails for me now?? |
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