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LICENSING EXECUTIVES SOCIETY
Britain and Ireland
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Top Licensing gains top rating as elective module in University MBAPositive and encouraging feedback from studentsThe Society’s work to establish licensing as a recognised topic in tertiary education bore early fruit recently with the completion of a ten-week MBA elective at the University of Leeds. It was offered as an option for the MBA in International Business under the title International Licensing – Strategies and Management. Twenty students took part, and eight of the ten lectures were presented by LES education committee chairman Kurt Deutsch and LES members Patrick Cantrill, Dr Robert Handscombe, Trevor Hunter and David Stanley. Kurt reports that initial formal comment from the University includes the following: This course … received very positive and encouraging feedback from all the participating students. Most highlighted the quality and knowledge of the external presenters and appreciated the support of LES. We look forward to running the course again next year. It is understood that students gave this course the highest rating of all elective modules in this MBA and that the University is considering making it a core topic in the MBA. Trevor Hunter and Kurt Deutsch are to meet the University shortly to discuss this development and also the possibility of running licensing short courses in the area. The provision of short courses for local small and medium enterprises is now also being discussed in the Midlands, where members are in contact with the University of Coventry. Top Pipes and drums launch for a successful Edinburgh conferenceWith a background of mass pipes and drums putting on a splendid display,
the LES International Annual Conference opened in style on 1 June, and the
LES Britain and Ireland organising team continued to earn warm praise
throughout the event. “We have had scores of messages offering thanks
and congratulations,” team leader Fiona Nicolson said. “It was
hard work for many people, but well worth it.” A report on the
conference appears in the centre pages. During the welcome and opening ceremony, LES International President
Rodney De Boos remarked on the growth of the Society worldwide and the
increasing value of membership. The family, he said, now consists of more than 9000 members, making it
the largest intellectual property society in the world. These members
exist in 28 national or regional societies from most geographical regions
in the world. By the end of the year it is hoped to have a Middle East
chapter representing the Arab League nations. Stressing the value of the Society, he said this was greatly enhanced by
the multi-disciplinary nature of its membership. Members came from all
areas of business, government and academia as well as the legal and patent
professions. The rapid increase in our store of knowledge means business
must deal with constant change. This inevitably led to specialisation both in research and
commercialisation. The linkages between the two areas therefore became
fundamentally important for economic growth. Rodney continued: “In this conference, LES Britain & Ireland
and LES International have provided you with the opportunity to learn from
the experience of others – to learn of successes and failures, of
problems and solutions. “The more we know of the efficient capture, management, development
and exploitation of knowledge, the better equipped we are to help others.
I urge you to seize the opportunity presented.” Top Look-alikes and Dolly the Sheep became top debating topics at the Edinburgh ConferenceWith five add-on seminars, a licensing course, five plenary
sessions, twenty seven workshops and a wide range of social and sporting
activities on offer, the 460 conference participants were spoilt for
choice. Early arrivals on the first day gained much from presentations on IP and
the benefits to the local economy, and there was a packed house for a talk
by Pascal Leardini of the European Commission. Nigel Jones, chairman of
the EC/Laws committee was there, and he provides useful comment on this in
his article. A session on trademarks and look-alikes, a major topic of debate,
attracted many participants. Dexter Brooks, in house counsel for
Coca-Cola, was in the chair and the speakers were John Noble of the
British Brands Group, replacing Frederick Mostert of Richmont
International, who could not attend, and Colin Storm, chief executive of
Guinness. Reporting on this for News Exchange, Alastair W Neill of Appleyard Lees
notes that John Noble gave a very clear exposition of the look-alike
problem as seen from the brand owners’ point of view. He clearly
supported a new unfair competition law, but under questioning was less
clear about how a new law would give certainty to competitors as to what
they could or could not do. Colin Storm also gave a very clear exposition on the history and success
of the Guinness brand, but indicated that the company had no real
difficulty in dealing with look-alikes. The Guinness policy was to
register everything of importance and to police and enforce those
registrations vigorously. He did not consider that any new law was
necessary. During the questioning session, Richard Kempner made the point that
there was room for competition between brand owners and supermarkets in
relation to supermarket “own brands”, and that this was
recognised by both sides. Ideally the brand owners would like there to be no competition
whatsoever and the supermarkets would like to be able to sell everything
that they wished, but both sides recognised that a compromise solution had
to be reached somewhere in between these extreme positions. The supermarkets knew that they had to have the branded products on
their shelves otherwise customers would not shop there. The brand owners
recognised that they must face some competition and that there was
actually room for the sale of both types of product. Speakers observed that although Asda achieved sales of 40,000,000 Puffin
biscuits up to the date of the famous trial, thoroughly discussed in a
previous workshop, the sales of Penguin biscuits during this period had
not significantly fallen. There seemed to be a feeling, from comments from the floor and general
discussion after the meeting broke up, that an unfair competition law
going beyond our present passing off law might actually put the brand
owners in an unfairly advantageous position. It would enable them to
enforce monopolies that were too restrictive for today’s competitive
climate. A useful debate on lessons for the future occupied the first half of
Wednesday morning, and participants then went on to what one member from
China described as ‘the real meat of the conference’ –
Dolly the sheep. Dr Ron James, managing director of PPL Therapeutics, described the
collaboration work by the Roslin Institute and PPL on sheep cloning and,
in a very frank manner, the challenges facing scientists in this field
today. Turning to public attitudes and ethics, he expressed his belief that
science was generally seen as positive in the USA and negative in Europe.
The result was that US science and technology based industry was protected
and encouraged, while in Europe the opposite tended to be true. The
reaction to genetically modified maize illustrated this point. On the ethics front, he made the point that patents were granted on
invention, not on “life”. He suggested that while diagnostic
kits based on patented genes will cost more, that cost cannot be more than
the market will bear otherwise kits will not be bought and without that
profit research will not be done. He said: “Market forces set prices irrespective of the monopoly
granted by patents. Attacks on biotechnology should not be fought on the
patents battle field but in separate legislation if needs be.” There was plenty of lively action in the workshops, all well attended
and in many cases fuelling cheerful arguments in the hotel bars. Strange activities such as caber-tossing and haggis-baiting were
said to be taking place during conference breaks. To find out more, we
asked our intrepid reporter Bill Downey of Wilson Gunn M’Caw to
investigate. Some fifty adventurous delegates and accompanying persons travelled to
Oxenfoord Castle, the ancestral home of the Earls of Stair, about twelve
miles south-east of Edinburgh, to take part in a mini-Highland games. A
welcoming drink was quickly followed by a typical highland meal of
spit-roasted lamb. The contestants formed four teams. Lessons were given by resident
experts in bagpipe playing, haggis-hurlin’, welly-throwing,
shot-putting, caber-tossing, falconry and whisky-tasting, with varying
degrees of success. Scrutineers marked individual efforts and the results fed to a
number-crunching human computer, who awarded the contest to team four.
Calls by the other teams for an official enquiry were rejected. There were prizes for individual effort. Perhaps the most notable of
these was the winner of the whisky tasting, a Ms. Saskia van Dijk-Struyk
(Benelux). This was, she declared, a triumph of talent over experience.
The Harris hawk also deserves a mention. Whilst making falconers of us
all, he/she still managed to catch a couple of rabbits in his/her spare
time. Despite the success of the day, it was not certain that anyone would be
furthering their ambitions in this competitive area. The chemical industry committee, which like others met at the
Edinburgh Conference, was started in 1995 with only 25 members and now has
more than 350. It has a directory of members, and has organised well
attended workshops and add-on seminars at most of the LESI and LES
USA/Canada meetings. Members of the European committee reviewed legal and other
developments. Notable among these were the Community Patent Green Paper,
the draft Utility Model Directive, the European Commission’s review
of the economic impact of international exhaustion of trademarks, and the
proposed directive on copyright harmonisation. The Healthcare committee reviewed recent activities and plans
for workshops and add-ons at LES conferences in the next few years. The
add-on to the Venice Pan-European Meeting in September 1999 is creating
great interest: this will be based on a licensing game that proved highly
popular at a recent LES USA & Canada meeting. More specifically, members discussed progress in bringing out a European
Healthcare directory to match those which have already been produced for
the US and Asia. The Constitution committee reported on having met
representatives of the Arab Licensing and Technology Transfer Society to
discuss this body’s draft constitution and bylaws with a view to it
becoming a member society of LES. Considerable progress was made. Already looking ahead to next year, the Trade Mark and Character
Licensing Committee reviewed the topics and speakers planned for the 1999
International conference in Melbourne. It is following current
developments such as exhaustion of trade mark rights, especially in
Europe; dilution of rights, especially recent legislation in the United
States; domain names and procedures for settling disputes; European
Directive on comparative advertising and the contrast with previous
national laws, and links with other international IP organisations. (Reports
by Nigel Jones and Stephen D Powell) Most IP owners view licensing as an occasional diversion, a necessity, a
strategic element. The emerging view is of licensing as a business. Emmett
J Murtha, President & CEO, Fairfield Resources International > We regard intellectual assets as knowledge with a potential to generate
revenues and as a key factor in creating value for the company. Gordon
McConnachie, Intellectual Asset Manager, The Dow Chemical Company. It attracted 172 participants from the United Kingdom, 81 from the
United States, 26 from Japan, 23 from France, 17 from Germany, 15 from
Australia, 14 from the Czech Republic and 13 from China. There were eleven registrants from The Netherlands, ten from Norway,
nine from Sweden, eight from Belgium and Canada, and seven from Italy.
Six participants came from Finland and South Africa, four from Austria,
Egypt, Mexico, Spain and Hungary, three from Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
Denmark, Malaysia and Switzerland, and two from Ireland, Israel and the
Philippines. Single numbers were recorded from Jordan, Korea, New Zealand,
Pakistan, Paraquay, Russian Federation, Singapore and Ukraine. After a hectic but fruitful year in office as both Vice President of
the Society and head of the organising team for the LES International
Conference, Fiona Nicolson has now taken over from Ben Goodger as the
Society’s President. She sees another busy year ahead, for she wants to continue the work of
building up the LES profile amongst industry and the professions. The
International Conference has been a great boost for us in this respect,
she says, and the Society should lose no time in targeting Britain &
Ireland attendees at the conference who are not members of the Society.
She writes: “We must of course continue the good work over the last
few years in increasing our membership, and I am grateful to Ben Goodger
for his activities in this respect. I am delighted that Trevor Hunter has
agreed to be Vice President and I am sure he will be invaluable in
encouraging new members from industry. I am looking forward to working
with him. “We must also give attention to modern means of communication and
ensure that as a Society we are making maximum use of the Internet for
keeping members informed and in touch with each other. The Edinburgh
meeting in particular highlighted the importance of continuing to build
and maintain our links with other European societies, both through our web
site and supporting one another in other ways. The European Presidents,
through the useful co-ordination of Barry Quest, held a very successful
meeting at Edinburgh, and I hope this will become a regular event. “I have dwelt somewhat on Edinburgh because many members of our
Society and others gave so much of themselves to making it a great team
event - and in doing so won the praise and the goodwill of LES members
throughout the world. It showed ourselves what we could do, and I hope
that same enthusiasm will be with us for the coming years. I am not
picking out people for whom as team leader I am grateful, there are so
many of them and they know my feelings well enough. But I would in
particular like to mention Margaret Sherry of our conference organisers,
In Conference, Renate Siebrasse, Chris Goodman, Stephen Powell, and
members of Council for their general support and encouragement.” Trevor Hunter, the Society’s new Vice President, is a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Chemistry and a member of the LES Council and education
committee. He spent the early part of his career in research with ICI, the Water
Research Centre and notably eight years at the Atomic Weapons Research
Establishment at Aldermaston. He then headed north to Bradford and Allied
Colloids, where for the next twenty years he travelled the world selling
flocculants to the mining industry before becoming manager of the patents
and licensing department. Trevor writes: “With the increasing importance attached to
intellectual asset management worldwide, I firmly believe that LES Britain
& Ireland should be better known to British industry. Intellectual
property management in SMEs and even in larger corporations often becomes
the responsibility of executives with technical/commercial backgrounds but
no formal training in IP, and such people could benefit greatly from
membership of the LES. “It is one of my objectives over the next two years to work with
our president Fiona Nicolson and the Council of the Society to increase
our membership from the industrial sector.” Edinburgh launch for more profitable use of the
Internet The Patent Office did a great job at the Edinburgh conference by
staging an Internet café at which delegates could practice and
learn more about the ins and out of e-mail and other procedures, surf the
net, and enjoy a refreshing cup of coffee with pastries while they were
about it. And behind the scenes, Presidents from European societies were making
decisions designed to make life easier for members keen to plug into
cyberspace for professional and business reasons. What they agreed was that any member wanting a link from the popular
LES-Europe web site at http://les-europe.org can now have one. This is on the understanding that the linked site must be a personal
site of an LES member, or the site of a company or other organisation
having at least one LES member. Other sites unrelated to any current LES
member will not be accepted. Another ground rule is that the linked site must be ‘appropriate’
i.e. it must have some relevance to licensing or the activities of LES.
The link may include or be accompanied by very brief descriptive
information. This should be suitably ‘professional’ and should
not be of an obvious promotional or advertising nature. Acceptable examples are ABC, patent attorneys based in Munich, or BCA, a
research company based in Cambridge, UK, with offices in The Hague, There will be a charge of £50 (sterling) per calendar year for each
link. All links are accepted on the understanding that LES does not endorse or
accept responsibility for any views expressed or any material contained in
the linked site. Applications for links are invited and should be sent to enquiries@les-europe.org or to Barry Quest at BQuest@wgm-patents.com. The Edinburgh conference was also the launch pad for the new web site
for LES International. This site, according to Saskia van Dijk-Struyk of
LES Benelux, has three levels. One is open to anyone interested in licensing and technology transfer,
another is for members and others interested in knowing more about LES
(registration is needed), and the third is password protected and is for
members only. The third level contains a bulletin board for messages and licensing
queries. Once the site has settled down the organisers will be providing more
information on how to make the best use of it. The
address of the site is http://www.lesi.org. Reporting at the Society’s twenty-sixth Annual General Meeting in
Edinburgh on 1 June, retiring President Ben Goodger recalled that his aims
during a busy and rewarding year in office had been to widen the Society’s
franchise, improve its profile and increase the membership. He was pleased with the way things had gone, and commented in particular
on the quality of the Society’s meetings and the encouraging
involvement of committees with those of related organisations. Ben remarked that little improvement could have been achieved without
the support of members of Council and the chairmen of standing committees
and special interest groups. In particular, he wanted to record his thanks
to Renate Siebrasse and to the Vice President, Fiona Nicolson. In thanking Ben, Fiona said it had been a great privilege to serve the
Society. It was a highly active body and great fun to be part of. She now
looked forward to a fruitful year in the Presidential chair, and welcomed
Trevor Hunter as Vice President. Mary Swords, newly elected chairman of LES Ireland, had been duly
nominated and was elected a member of Council. Earlier in the meeting,
members had approved the audited accounts and re-appointed M J Goddard as
auditor. The committee remains active, monitoring legal developments that are
likely to have an effect on the day-to-day activities of licensing
executives. These include the UK Competition Bill, the European Commission’s
Green Paper on the Community Patents, and the Draft Directive on Utility
Models. The key points on the Competition Bill (up-to-date as of the end of
June) are the following. First, the Bill is now unlikely to receive Royal Assent before the
summer break. Instead, it is hoped that Royal Assent will be given in the
autumn. There will then be a transitional period, probably a year or so,
before the prohibitions take effect. Second, there will not be any national block exemptions. Initially,
there had been suggestions that there might be national block exemptions
relating to agreements in respect of which there are no EU exemptions, but
that position appears now to have changed. Third, one of the sets of guidelines to be prepared by the Office of
Fair Trading will be on intellectual property. These have not yet been
drafted, and may not be available before Royal Assent is given. We will
review these guidelines very closely, and submit comments on the draft
when it is circulated. Finally, we understand that there will be no provisions in the Bill
extending the law on passing off to introduce in the UK the Continental
concept of unfair competition. GREEN PAPER As regards the Commission’s Green Paper on Community Patents, the
Commission’s thinking was summarised by Pascal Leardini when he spoke
(at the committee’s invitation) at the LES International Conference
in Edinburgh. He emphasised that the key issues remain translations and
enforcement procedure. On translations, he appeared to favour a modified “package solution”
involving translation only of an enhanced abstract. As regards
enforcement, he explained the Commission’s current view. This was
that it would be too difficult to establish a single patents court of
first instance, but that instead the Commission were likely to recommend
restriction on the number of courts in each country which would have
jurisdiction to deal with Community Patent questions. Mr Leardini emphasised, however, that the Commission had not finalised
its consultation exercise, and in particular had not yet received the
views of the European Parliament. It is said that the Parliament’s
report should be completed before the summer break; that the Commission’s
report on the conclusions from the consultation process should be
available this autumn; and that the draft Regulation on the Community
Patent would be published in early 1999. The committee will continue to monitor developments closely. UTILITY MODELS Finally, in relation to the draft Utility Model Directive, the general
view is that the current draft is defective in many respects, and needs
significant improvement. In particular, it does not set any standard for
inventiveness. The basic position adopted by the committee on behalf of LES Britain and
Ireland during the consultation process relating to the Directive was that
we did not favour the introduction of a Utility Model at all. This is in
stark contrast to the views of LES members elsewhere in Europe, in
particular Germany. However, we believe LES members across Europe will
agree that if there is to be a directive seeking to harmonise utility
model laws in Europe, it must adopt a sensible approach and include at
least some requirement for inventiveness. Any LES Britain and Ireland member wishing to express a view on this
or any of the other issues referred to in this report should contact me,
Nigel Jones, on 0171 456 5804.
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