I ate so much yesterday that I cannot now get into my posh
suit. Sadly, I have reached that stage
in life where even an elasticated waist isn’t enough, because my actual waist
can expand more quickly than the elastic.
I will have to get an extension. To the elastic I mean.
27 November 2014, noon
Wearing my posh suit, a safety pin and a bit of a gap (I’m
sure it is not that obvious), I venture out to meet another group of patent
attorneys. We hold the meeting round a
picnic table. They tell me I am very
honoured, because usually lunch is not half as elaborate as this and not all of
their visitors get a pudding course as well.
I consider offering to say grace for them, for a small fee, but they
look a hard-nosed lot and I suspect their definition of value for money might
not be that accommodating.
My elasticated waist is also not that accommodating. I am obliged to say no to the pudding course
because I am not sure of the tensile strength of the safety pin.
We are supposed to be talking about CIPA, but actually we
have a far more interesting discussion about the value of IP to industry. We wonder how come business people would
rather spend their money on virtually anything before they spend it on a
freedom to operate opinion. So they will
get an accountant, who will look at their accounts and add in an extra entry
for “accountants’ fees”; and they will get a lawyer, who will make sure they
have some impenetrable documents to fight about in the future; and they will
get a marketing expert to build them a brand, possibly under someone else’s
trade mark. They will get IT consultants
so that their employees can communicate with one another; and HR people to deal
with the fall-out when they do. They
will get a health and safety audit, a website, an anti-bribery policy and an
account with the local caterer, not to mention insurance against accidentally
burning any of these. They will get
business mentors, who are related to other business mentors and thus have a
head start on the networking front, and who have a lot of experience of being
business mentors which makes them good at it even if nobody can quite define
what it means. But they will not call in
a patent or trade mark attorney if they can help it, and nor will any of the
other people they have brought in first.
Perhaps this is because talking to an IP attorney is like
taking your car for a service: you always seem to leave with more problems than
you thought you had, and the sensation that ignorance would indeed have been
bliss but is no longer an option.
Or perhaps IP really isn’t that important? I find it hard to accept that my whole life
has been dedicated to something that isn’t important, but I guess it can’t be
ruled out.
It would help, of course, if IP were included in MBAs. This is also something we must work on. At present an MBA is more likely to include a
module on office canteens than on IP strategy.
This fact gets me quite impassioned, but I have to calm down when I feel
the safety pin yielding.
After all this, there is relatively little time to talk
about CIPA, but we do manage to discuss how the Institute can help the
profession to recruit the best Mega-beings.
I reckon that if every office had an IP strategy like every office has a
cold water dispenser (because a tap just isn’t good enough these days), then
surely more people would want a career in IP.
Again we come back to the MBA point.
I attempt a deep breath, in the interests of keeping calm. But the safety pin reminds me, in no uncertain
terms, that breathing deeply is not actually an option right now.
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