Member Article

Industry leaders gather for Intellectual Property day

Leaders in intellectual property assembled at the House of Commons for this year’s World Intellectual Property Day.

Baroness Wilcox, Minister for IP spoke on the critical importance of intellectual property, and Dr Guriqbal Singh Jaiya, director of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, highlighted the vital contribution intellectual property is making to the UK economy.

Peter Prowse, Chairman of IPAN – the Intellectual Property Awareness Network – who hosted the event says: “We live in a knowledge-based economy. However, to profit from the fruits of their knowledge, individuals, businesses and investors need to be clear about their ownership and the creativity that they develop from it.

“Without a clear intellectual property framework, nobody can profit from their ideas and the UK economy will stall.

Julian Heathcote Hobbins of FAST and an IPAN director added: “This is an important message that everyone in government needs to understand if they are serious about building a strong economy in the UK.”

Other speakers included Emma Wild, Head of Knowledge Economy, Confederation of British Industry and Richard Hooper, IPO Digital Copyright Exchange Rapporteur.

At the event, IPAN launched a new resource for Parliamentarians and industry, covering a diverse and broad range of IP subjects.

The new series of issue briefs provide impartial summary to aid understanding of important IP related issues.

Peter Prowse concludes: “All Parliamentarians have an interest in the economic prosperity of this country so they should all be familiar with the issues around intellectual property.

“We need effective IP regulations appropriate for an increasingly knowledge based economy, to help drive the UK recovery forward.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .