Patent attorneys are traditionally risk-averse. This is fair enough considering the costs you
have to pay if you take an ill-judged IP risk and don’t get away with it. So it is only proper that CIPA Council should
take a cautious approach to anything that hasn’t been subjected to a
comprehensive risk assessment.
But I would like to introduce you to risk assessment, Wess
Curntry style. Because, as I have
discovered this half-term week, there is a whole new approach being trialled on
the roads of North Somerset. We will
explore this using a few simple scenarios: try them for yourself, and see how
you score on the Wess Curntry Risk-ometer.
- You are a bit unsteady on
your pins. Even with your zimmer
frame. You cover about three metres
a minute, and that’s if you remember to look where you’re going. You are standing at the side of a busy
road. There is no pedestrian
crossing. The traffic keeps
coming. What do you do?
Answer: following a thorough Wess
Curntry risk assessment, you cross the road anyway. Thus creating a de facto pedestrian crossing, a couple of dented bollards and a lot
of upset motorists.
- You are driving a
tractor. The tractor is very
slow. It is also very big,
approximately 1.4 times the width of the average Wess Curntry
carriageway. You are waiting to
pull out of a concealed gateway.
You know that when you do, half a ton of manure will slop over the
side of your trailer and across the path of anything within a seventy-foot
radius. Traffic is busy. What do you do?
Answer: following a thorough Wess
Curntry risk assessment, you wipe your nose on your sleeve and pull out anyway. Thus creating a de facto farmyard where the road used to be. And obliterating the guy with the zimmer
frame.
- You are in a largish
hatchback. It was built three years
ago and serviced three months ago.
It has an engine. It
contains fuel. There is absolutely
nothing preventing it from going forward if you apply pressure to the
accelerator pedal. You are waiting
to enter a roundabout. It is quite
busy. Not terrifyingly busy, you
understand, just a few cars and things.
You identify a gap. If you
get your finger out, you and the car behind will have plenty of time to
enter the roundabout. What do you
do?
Answer: you take a moment or two
to conduct a thorough Wess Curntry risk assessment. When the moment has passed, you set off into
what used to be a gap. With your finger
firmly not out, you saunter your way
across the roundabout towards Kwiksave® but hey, look, it is not Kwiksave any
more, isn’t that fascinating, shall we pop in, no perhaps not, or shall we,
shan’t we, oops, was that the turning? Thus
creating a de facto skid pad in front
of the supermarket that definitely isn’t Kwiksave.
- You are driving past a
newsagent. Your child wants a Curly
Wurly®. There is, most
inconsiderately, no car park slap bang in front of the Curly Wurly stand. Instead there are some yellow lines, a
blind bend, a zebra crossing and a juggernaut parked opposite delivering
doughnuts. What do you do?
- You are sitting next to a
scarecrow. The scarecrow is full of
straw. The straw is dry and
flammable. You want to light your
pipe. What do you do?
You get the gist.
This appears to be going on all the time, everywhere I
go. The Wess Curntry must be an
actuary’s nightmare.
So I am actually quite relieved to learn, from papers sent
to the Internal Governance Committee to review, that CIPA’s contingency funds
are invested in a moderate-risk portfolio and are not going to be frittered
away on volatile dotcom bubbles or devil-may-care zimmer frame owners. Vive le cautious approach, I say! I have had enough of the risk-takers this
week.
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