British Library Inventors Club

British Library

Author Jack1956  Public Domain  Source Wikimedia Commons

Jane Lambert

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.

Useful Seminars at the British Library

British Library

Author: Jack1956  Copyright waived by the owner

Jane Lambert

If you own, manage or invest in a startup or other small business, you should check out the Business and Intellectual Property Centre at the British Library at 86 Euston Road. If you don't know the area it is almost next door to St Pancras station and a short walk from King's Criss and Euston.  It has a massive collection of business publications with access to even more online.  It is open to anyone with a reader's card which can be obtained upon showing evidence of identity and residence.  The Library also has Linkedin and Facebook groups.

If you are new to the Centre you could do worse than attend the free workshop on 13 Jan 2020 entitled Introduction to using the  Business and IP Centre.  The seminar starts at 10:30 and continues to 13:00. atter which there will be a chance to meet the speakers, staff another attendees informally over refreshments  On the same day, there is an introduction to intellectual property entitled Can I protect a business idea starting at 14:00 and ending at 17:00 which is also free.   If you miss either of those talks they are repeated on 27 Jan (see Introduction to using the Business & IP Centre and Can I protect a business idea 27 Jan 2020).

After you have attended these introductory lectures you mat want to try some of the others.  Seminars that I would attend if I lived nearer London include

• How do I search registered designs  14  Jan 14:00 to 17:00  charge £20;
• How do I search patents 16 Jan 10:00 to 13:30 charge £20;
• How to protect your IP abroad  22 Jan 10:00 to 12:30 free; and
• How do I use British Library collections for my business research? 29 Jan 10:00 to 13:00 charge £20.

Having founded and chaired the inventors' clubs at Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield, I am delighted to see that the British Library will launch an Inventos Club on 27 Jan 2019 between 18:00 and 20:49 and I will support that in any way I can,

Anyone wishing to discuss this article or any of the issues mentioned in it should call me on 020 7404 5252 or send me a message through my contact page,

Working with Middlesex

On Monday 3 Feb 2014 I gave a talk on intellectual property to a mixed group of LLM and LLB students and staff at the Hendon campus of Middlesex University. As I had a fairly mixed audience that ranged from academics and professionals specializing in IP to undergraduates I started with a general introduction to IP which covered the topics mentioned in my slides and handout of the 26 June 2013. Stressing the territorial limitations of intellectual property rights I mentioned the intellectual property treaties and the TRIPs agreement. Topics that I had discussed in detail in my presentation to the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce just before Christmas in TRIPS: The Linchpin of the World Intellectual Property System. Finally, I focused on bilateral investment treaties which I introduced in "Bilateral Investment Treaties: Eli Lilly and Co. v Government of Canada" 27 July 2013 NIPC Law and is now the subject of an article that I published in Sweet & Maxwell's EIPR last December (Jane Lambert "Bilateral Investment Treaties: A Remedy for SME?" (Dec 2013) [2013] EIPR 759).

The audience seemed to like my presentation - or at least they were very polite about it - and over lunch with Professor Joshua Castellino, Dean of the Law School, I discussed ways in which my chambers and I could contribute to the already extensive work that the University is doing for its own students and staff and businesses and the wider community in Hendon, North London and beyond.  Possible areas of consolidation include the launch of an inventors club along the lines of the one I already chair in Leeds to transferring the clinics that I operate in chambers to Hendon. I also told Professor Castelino about some of the initiatives that are taking place elsewhere in London such as the British Library's Business and IP Centre.

With some 40,000 students on campuses in London, Dubai, Malta and Mauritius, Middlesex University is a massive institution which already offers a wide range of services for business. These include research and consultancy, technology transfer and knowledge transfer schemes for which various sources of funding are available. The University's clients include some of the largest businesses in the UK including ASDA, Halifax, Royal Mail and Toshiba.

If as is likely my discussions with Prof Castellino and his colleagues bear fruit I shall mention it in this blog. In the meantime should anyone from the University wish to attend the next London IP clinic which will be held in chambers on 26 Feb 2014 he or she should make an appointment with George on 020 7670 1550 or complete our London IP clinics form. If you want to discuss this article you may call me on 020 7404 5252 during normal office hours or you can message me through my contact form. You can also tweet me, write on my wall or send me a message through G+, Linkedin or Xing.