Invention Intelligence Lab

Alongside its fun Wallace and Grommit, Cracking Ideas exhibition at London’s Science Musuem, the UK IP Office is running a series of free evening events to raise awareness about the importance of Intellectual Property.

It says it is targetting small businesses, but anyone with an innovative idea can attend. Reservations are on a first-come-first-served basis and must be made in advance.

The Exhibition and the IP evenings run through to November 2009.

Get more details about the IP Awareness evenings and book 

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If you’re thinking of trademarking a business or product name in the UK or EU right now, this article should be of interest. Reproduced by kind permission of Briffa IP specialists.

As previously reported May 1 2009 sees the official fees of a Community Trade Mark being reduced by 40%, the registration fees have been abolished and official fees on application are now just €900 covering the first three classes.  However hot on the heels of this announcement is the UK Intellectual Property Office who has announced a public consultation and review of its trade mark procedures and fees.

At present the fees for a UK trade mark are already reasonable at £200 for a one class application although of course this covers the UK only rather than an EU wide trade mark. It is going to be difficult therefore for the UK Intellectual Property Office to compete on price, however early indications suggest that they are considering reducing fees by £30 for an online application.

Also and perhaps of more interest is a proposal to introduce other services including an “Early Assist” application service. This service would allow new applicants to pay 50% of the application fees on filing prompting the Office to examine the application and report any existing same/similar marks which may be a bar to the registration.  On review of the results the applicant has the option to continue with the application and pay the balance or withdraw the application and forfeit the fees they have already paid.

It is important to note that the examination carried out by the UK Intellectual Property Office does not include unregistered marks which may have prior rights and which should be considered when seeking brand protection.  The examination report should be analysed in detail and as always we strongly advise seeking legal advice to determine the best options available to you.

This price war clearly has huge benefits for small to medium sized businesses in these harsh economic times. However people should not lose sight of the reasons for choosing particular territories for a trade mark filing. When deciding you should always consider which territories you actually sell in. If you are just selling in the UK then it may not be wise to file a CTM unless you plan to expand to other European territories or to sell in these countries in the near future. However if you are selling in the EU (even to just one or two other countries) or are planning to expand either through franchising or licensing arrangements then it may be prudent to secure a Community Trade Mark at the earliest opportunity.

For more advice on trade marks please contact Briffa at Briffa Trade Marks.

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Shed inventors might be engineering new products out of metal and polymers, but the ingenious kitchen table designer is just as likely to reach for her sewing machine.

So I was interested to stumble across the Entrepreneur’s Guide to Sewn Product Manufacturing by Kathleen Fasanella.

According to one of its forty 5-star reviews on Amazon…

“If you are serious about starting a sewn product manufacturing business, YOU MUST BUY THIS BOOK! If you don’t, you just kissed your chances of success good-bye. Kathleen tells you all of the ins-and-outs of getting along with the players in the industry; and if you don’t play the game right, you don’t play at all, because they will refuse to do business with you!”

Kathleen’s blog over at Fashion Incubator is also packed with must-read info for those in the fashion industry. And a busy forum where industry professionals and amateurs alike congregate to talk about practical topics like Sewing and Cutting, Offshore Production and Manufacturing, Textiles, Machines, Tools and Equipment and, most popular, Sales and Marketing.

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US-centric Everyday Edisons are running a competition (closes 20th May 2009) to find innovative products that would appeal to WD-40 users.

But its not the competition that interests me here.

Anyone around the world who is developing a new product idea could learn a lot from their competition requirements:

Your product concept must:

• Be innovative and patentable
• Feature both utility and function
• Be consumable - not a tool, device or piece of equipment (or if a device, very simple to make and use)
• Be demonstrable, creating a positive and observable change
• “Connect. Protect. Fix. Perform.”
• It is not necessary to submit scientific formulas or product formulations.
• Identify the Who, What and Where
  • Who is the end-user?
  • What will they use your product for?
  • Where will they purchase the product?

Follow these requirements for ANY innovative product or technology in development, and you’ll get a great headstart on ironing out its path to profitability.

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It strikes me that Donald Rumsfeld was right.

“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we don’t know we don’t know.”

Surely he WAS talking about new product development?

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