Monday 8 April 2024

British Library Inventors Club

British Library
Author Jack1956  Public Domain  Source Wikimedia Commons




I am delighted to report that the British Library has set up an "Inventors Club".  I wish its organizers and members every success,  It is long overdue.  Other big cities have had inventors' clubs for years as I mentioned in my article Inventors Clubs on the topic in NIPC Invention on 25 May 2013.  I suggested such a club to two of the folk who ran the Business and IP Centre at the British Library at about that time.

The Club meets on the last Monday of every month.  The next meeting will take place between 18:00 and 19:30 on 29 April 2024.   The Eventbrite registration card states:
"At the event, we will be talking to innovators who have already brought their products to market or have disclosed their intellectual property. Join us to learn about their journeys, what problems they had to overcome and useful tips about bringing a new product to market."

The card also states that the club's organizers are  Bob Lindsey, a chartered engineer who set up and ran the Kingston club and Mark Shehan who was the British Library's "inventor in residence",

I strongly commend the club to inventors in or near London who are not employed in a research or development role in a business or university.   As I said in my article the quotation wrongly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson that if a man can build a better mousetrap than his neighbour the world will beat a path to his door is simply not true.   Such inventors are vulnerable to invention promotion schemes that promise much but deliver little despite warnings from British and overseas authorities. Also, unless they have a coherent intellectual property strategy they risk spending large sums of money on patents that they don't need and may never be worked.

I wrote:

"A good inventors' club will help avoid those costly mistakes by providing a forum for such individuals to share their experience, hear talks by experts and make connections with potential investors and professional advisers."

 In the past, some clubs have gone even further by arranging training courses and even some funding.

Independent inventors will find a lot of practical information in NIPC Invention "Inventors Club" blog which I have been running for many years.   They can also join the Inventors' Club group on Linkedin. If anyone wishes to discuss any issue in this article I can be contacted on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or through my contact form.

No comments:

Post a Comment