Green patents in 9 months, digital copyright love-ins and a big hand for the Ethiopian coffee farmers

The IPKat was invited to attend a World Intellectual Property Day reception this afternoon, hosted by the British Minister for Intellectual Property David Lammy MP (right, on this occasion, anyway ...). The venue was the "Wallace and Gromit's World of Cracking Ideas" exhibition at the Science Museum, in London's rather lovely 19th century Kensington culture campus. Although he dislikes canapés, loathes Wallace and Gromit, prefers a decent Scotch to the usual wines on offer and isn't always too keen on the IP establishment, the Kat betook himself to this official merriment and was not disappointed.

The Minister took as the first theme for his address the need to look at intellectual property, particularly, from the perspective of the consumer. The government, he affirmed, did not want to tell people that they couldn't do the things they liked, which seems to apply to almost everything that involves copyright. 

Left: Urged to do so by the Minister, SABIP supremo Joly Dixon enjoys a glass of vino before the midnight price rise announced in today's budget

While copyright had been "rightly" in "the hands of professionals" for a very long time, the time had come to develop a copyright strategy based on a "shared consensus" which would result from a proper debate [the forum for this debate is a brand new microsite, to be launched in May].  This involved "trying to reach the hard-to-reach" -- though it wasn't immediately clear whether the hard-to-reach were consumers with iPods stuck in their ears or copyright collecting societies, imprisoned by the antique notion that somehow their members might just be entitled to some money.  

Pausing for a moment to reflect that Wallace and Gromit (right) were "a huge and important export, linked with something that has been with us a long time -- intellectual property", the Minister then turned to the need to encourage small businesses to make more use of their IP since "all businesses own IP in one form or another". He rightly praised the Intellectual Property Office's online IP healthkit tool (reviewed by this blog here), before addressing the need to overhaul the global IP system ("it has done well but needs replacing").  Global IP needs a "flexible framework" in order to accommodate open innovation [that's funny, says Merpel, I'm sure that the current system has proved sufficiently flexible to enable the development of open innovation, open source, Creative Commons, Wikinomics ...].  The current international system was "designed for another era but needs replacing".  We Brits, through our leadership of the European Union, are poised to bring this about.

The Minister then identified a number of targets at which Her Majesty's Government was taking aim.  Climate change was to be halted by a commitment to the deployment of the patent system as a means of incentivising the growth of green and low-carbon technologies. 

Left: an enraptured audience of IP cognoscenti listen to the Minister's speech

Green patents would be granted within 9 months of application [listen quietly at this point and you'll be able to hear the sound of European Patent Office examiners choking on their Bratwurst while they read this].  The world backlog of 7 million unexamined patent applications would then be eliminated [the IPKat invites readers to comment on this statistic], and a meeting would be arranged with the to-be-appointed US Intellectual Property Czar, through whom meaningful exchanges of information and official activities would be channelled. 

More was yet to come. Mutual recognition of examination results and other forms of cooperation with foreign patent offices was endorsed, with special mention being made of the "ground breaking" deal struck with the Chinese. 

Right: prolific and outspoken wind-up expert Trevor Bayliss enjoys a drink with Peter Prowse (CIPA). The IPKat was alarmed to find Trevor in a museum, but reassured when he discovered that the iconic inventor was a guest, not an exhibit.

The developing world too was entitled to support and respect for IP, which could be delivered though using IP as a means of furnish "access to quality medicines" and by helping Ethiopian coffee farmers develop an IP-based business model for the promotion of their crops.

The IPKat has been promised an electronic copy of the official version of David Lammy's speech, which he will make available to readers of the blog.  In the meantime, he is pleased to report that he thought that the Minister put on a pretty good show.  Approachable, lucid and apparently genuinely interested in the issues raised by intellectual property, he even made quite a good job of listening to others. While still quite sceptical with regard to a good deal of the content of the Minister's speech, the Kat is inclined to rate him as a long-term asset and not as a liability.  With a first-rate Intellectual Property Office behind him, he may be able to achieve some real improvements.