LICENSING EXECUTIVES SOCIETY

Britain and Ireland

NEWS EXCHANGE
Issue 74: August - September 2000

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BT's recent challenge to US Internet service providers (ISPs) requiring them to enter into licences for the use of hypertext linking, has provoked outrage amongst Internet users!

BT owns a US patent which, it claims, gives it a monopoly over the technology that allows web-users to move from one web page to another by clicking on texts or pictures. The patent, which lay 'hidden' for fifteen years, was apparently discovered in 1998 during a routine trawl through BT's IP assets. It only affects the US and lasts till 2006. However, it was not until recent weeks that BT took public action. The two-year delay between discovering the patent and attempting to enforce it, at first smacks of disorganisation. However, while BT insiders do not dispute that is a possible explanation, the delay is in fact more likely to be due to BT carefully researching its position. That it has now chosen to go ahead in such a public manner suggests that it believes it has an arguable case.

Whether anyone can produce sufficient prior art dating back to before 1976, in a form which will stand up in court, is a gamble BT appears willing to take. At the moment the odds seem stacked in its favour as prior art in the field of IT is notoriously difficult to prove. As one wag recently put it, nothing is more accessible than today's Internet, but nothing is less accessible than yesterday's Internet. Having said that, the Project Xanadu web-site (http://www.xanadu.net) claims that Ted Nelson came up with the idea of hypertext in 1960, he chose the word 'hypertext' in 1963 and published the word in his book "Literary Machines" in 1965, so we will see.

Whether or not the relevant prior art is out there, I suspect that BT's strategy does not include lengthy and expensive court battles fighting over the validity of the patent. Instead, BT looks set on seeking to extract a short-term commercial advantage. Big names in the ISP world such as AOL, CompuServe and Yahoo! are the ones being challenged. BT will probably agree to back down, in return for a financial payment which (though likely to be significant) will probably just about make more economic sense to the ISPs than all-out litigation. It is telling that BT has assured the public that individual users and personal "homepages" will never be asked to take out licences.

BT may well be successful in extracting these sizeable financial sums from the ISPs, in view of the havoc a temporary or permanent injunction would cause. As readers will be aware, in a recent case Amazon.com sued barnesandnoble.com for using their "one click" ordering system and in this case a federal district judge granted a preliminary injunction. Such an injunction against the use of hypertext (if allowed) would cripple the Internet. It therefore appears that with the stakes so high, BT has the ISPs over a barrel.

However, from a public relations point of view, BT's actions are highly questionable. There still persists a perception that the structure of the Internet is there for all to use. To try to 'enclose the common land' is likely to stir up a peasants revolt. Unisys successfully enforced licences for its .gif compressed image files, but has been roundly vilified in the process. BT has chosen to go the same way, courting commercial damage and unpopularity. Any threat of shutting down the Internet is seen as outrageous, and the question asked is: 'Why can't BT get on and try to make money out of the Internet along with everyone else, without resorting to these dirty tricks?'

BT's handling of the issue also seems to be in direct contrast to its parallel current policy of portraying itself as less monolithic, reflected in the recent demerger of the company into five smaller companies. If that is the aim why is BT determined to make a windfall profit from an asset it had long forgotten even existed? Will the money sufficiently displace the bad feeling and collection of enemies that it would undoubtedly amass?

Ben Goodger is the Chair of the LES IT and eCommerce Special Interest Group and is a partner at Willoughby & Partners. He can be contacted by e-mail on ben@iprights.com; phone (+44) 1865 791990.

President's Diary
Past, Present and Future

The President's year of office always begins at the Annual Conference and AGM, which this year was held at the Majestic Hotel in Harrogate.

Fortunately, all of the hard work for the conference is undertaken by the retiring President! On behalf of the Society I would like to thank Trevor Hunter for organising an enjoyable conference with informative plenary speakers and lively and well-attended workshops.

A report on the conference appears elsewhere in this edition of News Exchange and so I will limit my comments to say that approximately 90 attendees all appeared to enjoy themselves, both on a professional and personal level. The accompanying persons' program, organised by Trevor's wife Janet, was much appreciated.

I would also like to congratulate Christi Mitchell on her appointment as Vice President and to offer my thanks, in advance, to all elected members of Council.

During the conference a number of items of future interest to members were discussed. We are hoping to use them as the basis for forthcoming meetings and also at next year's AGM and Annual Conference, which will be held in St Katherine's College, Oxford on 28 and 29 June. Please put these dates in your diary now!

One of the principle messages that I wish to emphasise during my year as President is that "this is your Society". Although Council members do their best to represent the views of members, we always welcome suggestions for improving the services offered by the Society and for possible topics and speakers on matters relating to licensing.

Chris Goodman
President LES Britain & Ireland

Chris and Sybil Goodman have been married for 35 years. They have three daughters and one grandson. Chris says that his main interests, other than his family, are golf, cricket, football, rugby and his two dogs. He is President of the Toton Sycamore Cricket Club. He has been interested in steam trains for many years and is about to acquire a 7.25'' gauge Homeside model steam engine, which he plans to keep in the lounge! Chris is ambitious for the Licensing Executives' Society. He would like to see it modernise, adapting to the 21st Century and its new technologies. We wish him well in his new role as President of the Society. He will certainly be busy as he is also Chairman of the LESI Environmental Technologies Committee

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21st Century Licensing - DNA or DOT.COM?

The recent announcement that scientists have completed a first draft of the entire human genetic code was heralded by Prime Minister Tony Blair as "the first great technological triumph of the 21st Century".

This is set to compete with 'dot com technology' as the new century's principal area of commercial expansion and licensing opportunities, and also as the most controversial area of intellectual property protection.

It was hoped that the much-publicised joint announcement of a dead-heat in the race to sequence the genome, between the publicly funded Human Genome Project and the American private venture Celera Genomics, would end the bitter rivalry between these two organisations. However, although Celera, and company president, Craig Venter, congratulated the public research effort, they insisted that they were ahead in the process of reading the code and that their 'first assembly' was superior to the 'working draft' generated by the Human Genome Project. Thus, the feud between the public and private research groups seems set to continue.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that the first stage in the mapping of the human genome has been completed, and well ahead of schedule. James Watson, who, along with Francis Crick, won the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in elucidating the structure of DNA, is reported to have greeted the news of the breakthrough with great enthusiasm. "The culmination of the human genome project is a great moment for our understanding of life," said Watson, adding, "We now stand on the brink of knowing all the words and sentences that make up the human instruction manual."

This 'human instruction manual' promises to revolutionise medicine, providing unprecedented insight into the underlying causes of human disease and facilitating the manufacture of 'tailor-made' drugs. By pinpointing tiny discrepancies in the DNA code of a given individual, it is hoped that scientists will be able to establish that person's susceptibility to serious conditions such as heart disease and cancers. It is to be expected that this new area of drug development and also the new technique of genetic testing, especially insofar as they originate in the academic environment or small start-up or spin-off companies, will give rise to considerable licensing and technology transfer opportunities.

However, fears have been expressed regarding the ethical problems facing society in light of our new genetic knowledge. One of the main concerns centres on the way in which genetic information and DNA profiling technology will be exploited by insurance firms and employers. The advent of improved genetic testing raises the possibility of the creation of a new 'genetic underclass' of people who are unable to obtain insurance, private healthcare or employment on the basis that the profile of their genes reveals an increased risk of them developing a serious illness.

At present, the Association of British Insurers' Code of Conduct states that the results of genetic tests already performed can be requested, but can only be used for underwriting purposes in limited circumstances. Furthermore, insurers are not permitted to request that applicants undergo genetic tests as a condition of them being offered insurance.

However, future genetic discrimination remains a real danger. The Human Genetics Commission (HGC), a body set up recently to provide strategic advice to the Government on human genetic technologies, followed the genome mapping announcement with the news that it is to launch an inquiry into the use of genetic information. In addition to examining the implications of genetic testing, the HGC is to investigate other issues arising from the genome project, including the patenting of human gene sequences.

It is to be hoped that it will be possible for a sensible course to be chartered between unfettered exploitation and oppressive regulation to enable full commercial benefits of this exciting new technology to be properly realised. Licensing executives should be vigilant and prepared to have their voices heard on the controversial issues lest the pendulum is allowed to swing too far in favour of the excessive anti-patent / anti-commercial exploitation view often seen vociferously expressed in the media.

Dr Michael Douglas
Wilson Gunn M'Caw (Biosciences Unit)

Universities & Innovation: Crossroads/Crisis

LES London Meeting at The House of Commons By Dr Ian Pearson
Dr Pearson gave a thought provoking talk to the very well attended London meeting in June.

Dr Pearson is keen to encourage LES to continue talking to the Government and thanked the society for doing so in the past.

Universities can play a major role in promoting the knowledge-driven culture so much talked about by the Government - too often however, the resulting IP leaves the country.

The rise in the knowledge economy brings new challenges. The Government has frequently drawn attention to our productivity gap in comparison with France, Germany & the USA. There is undoubtedly a gap but we must not forget the product itself. The product and its innovation are crucial. Britain must become more innovative to drive productivity growth.

Dr Pearson felt that the universities had some responsibility. They must start by patenting ideas. We lag behind the USA, Japan, Germany and France with the number of patents filed. We also spend about 50% less on R&D than the US and Japan and much of our research is "blue sky oriented". He felt that research should have more commercial objectives and that we have failed to establish enough business links with universities. He added that research funding has been spread too thinly and has been very heavily regulated.

The US Ivy League Universities are far more open to business links than Oxford and Cambridge. Private funding has been instrumental in the US. Dr Pearson believes that our fundamental approach to university funding is out of date and that our university salaries are far too low (US university salaries are 2.5 times greater than those in the UK). Although the Government stresses that it is keen to expand higher education it has not been prepared to pay for it.

He felt that we need to monitor the whole university system more closely:

• Make more use of league tables
• Follow the progress of students
• Record average starting salaries after course completion
• Provide students with a record of:
  a) what they pay
  b) what the Government pays

This would give the students/customers more power, allowing them to make informed choices.

He believes that the flat rate fee for students cannot be sustained. If we wish to improve the university system we should be charging what the market will take and perhaps even consider a private sector take-over of universities.

Despite criticisms of the system Dr Pearson is clear that our universities hold a huge pool of untapped talent. Businesses would benefit from being able to access this enormous asset. The DTI are considering setting up a National Innovation Agency, which would be directed entirely towards business needs. However, to make this new approach effective we will need to change the way in which we fund projects, actively directing funds to applied research.

Dr Pearson concluded by saying that we have a big advantage in this country in the quality of our science base but we must maximise its impact by ensuring that we link the research with those who know how to exploit it - otherwise we will fall even further behind our major competitors.

Dr Ian Pearson entered the House of Commons in the first by-election held after Tony Blair was elected Leader of the Labour Party in 1994. He currently serves on the Education and Employment Select Committee and takes a deep interest in industry, treasury and regional policy issues.

The Sun was shining on LES Ireland for the Annual Lunch

LES Ireland held their very successful, well-attended Annual Lunch and celebrated Bloomsday, 16 June, on one of the few sunny Fridays this summer!

The Conrad International Hotel was a fine setting for the representative gathering of Irish members from FR Kelly and Co (headed by Patent Agent and partner, Maura O'Connell) and Tomkins & Co (headed by former LES Irish Section President, Peter Hanna).

Former President, Kieran Comerford, was the guest speaker. Kieran has worked in the area of Research and Development and Intellectual Property for more than 25 years and was a founder member of LES Britain and Ireland. He has twice served as Chairman of the Irish Section.

Kieran's talk gave us an insight into the Irish Government's most recent R&D funding schemes:

Government Policy for Encouraging R&D

He told us that although Irish Government policy is to encourage R&D in both companies and universities the amount of research carried out in government organisations is not high in comparison with larger countries. However, between 1991 and 1997, the last year for which figures are available, there has been a threefold increase.

Ireland has benefited greatly from EU funding, particularly helping it to improve its infrastructure. EU funds have also been used to encourage R&D in industry by providing grant aid for project funding and R&D management, consultancy and training.

The Government has recently announced that it is making available $2.34 billion for research, innovation and technology. Within this sum is $672 million to support the "Technology Foresight Fund", a new fund to be administered by a research foundation targeting key new technologies.

Government Agencies

Two key government agencies support R&D in industry: the Industrial Development Agency (IDA) is charged with attracting foreign companies to make Ireland their base and Enterprise Ireland's aim is to encourage Irish companies to develop their R&D.

Grant Supports There are four main types of R&D funding:

• Direct funding for industrial R&D with defined commercial objectives
• Direct funding for joint projects between industry and universities
• Grant assistance in setting up R&D facilities
• EU transitional funding

Industry Supports

The main industrial support scheme is the Research, Technology and Innovation (RTI) grants scheme. The rate of the grant is determined by the location of the company applying: companies in less developed regions can get 10% more than those in more industrial areas, an additional 10% is available for first time applicants.

The scheme is also competitive on the basis of monthly tenders. The best projects each month are accepted. A smaller non-competitive scheme is also available for projects costing less than $90,000.

A recent addition to the funding schemes already described is the R&D Capability Support Scheme aimed at funding the setting up of R&D infrastructure: supporting construction, the equipping and staffing of new projects.

University -Industry Supports

The three main grant schemes for Universities are:

• Applied research grants
• Basic research grants
• Strategic research grants

Applied research grants are for university/industry cooperation, whereas the other two schemes are only for colleges.

Clearly there is a lot of help available for those with the determination to succeed.

At the Annual Lunch, Mary Swords, on behalf of the Irish Section Committee, made presentations to Kieran Comerford, Frank Murray of Enterprise Ireland and Noel McCarthy, formerly of Enterprise Ireland and now working as a Consultant in licensing areas, to mark their respective contributions to the LES Irish Section Committee.

* * * *

The Irish Section Committee was represented at the LES Britain and Ireland AGM and Annual Conference in Harrogate by Mary Swords and Yvonne McKeown and our members were represented by Donal O'Connor, of Cruickshanks, a former past President of LES Britain and Ireland, and his wife Linda and also by Anne Wingfield, a Patent Agent with FR Kelly.

We all enjoyed our stay in sunny Harrogate, LES B&I have been blessed with good weather for their events this summer! The conference was excellent and we welcomed the great hospitality of Trevor Hunter, his wife Janet and the other Council Members.

* * * *

The Irish Section Committee has not finalised its programme for the autumn but we plan to host an LES B&I Council Meeting in Dublin and we are hoping to welcome Walter Willigan, Director of Licensing at PricewaterhouseCoopers as a speaker at one of our events. Walter Willigan was a key note speaker at the Harrogate conference.

For further details about any of the LES Irish Section events please contact: Mary Swords email: mswords@arthurcox.ie

A Summer visit to Harrogate and a thoroughly successful Annual Conference and AGM for LES B & I

"A licence to add value" ran the headline in Harriet Arnold's Enterprise Zone feature in the Financial Times, announcing the opening day of our Annual Conference at the Majestic Hotel in Harrogate, and added value was certainly the benefit for approximately 90 delegates who listened to twenty-four speakers throughout the one and a half day Conference.

Particular thanks go to Key-note Speaker, Walter Willigan, Director of Licensing at PricewaterhouseCoopers for sharing with us his experiences as Program Director at IBM and to Carol Tullo, Controller and Queen's printer, HMSO, who captured our attention with her insight into Crown Copyright Licensing and Valuation. Thank you, too, to our workshop speakers and their Chairpersons for their time and support.

After the first series of workshops, the Annual General Meeting was held, at which Chris Goodman took over the President's chair and the proposal to elect Christi Mitchell as Vice-President was confirmed. A lively discussion ensued concerning the proposal to maintain the member's subscription at the present level before the proposal was eventually carried. Strong support was evident for using some of the Society's funds for establishing a recognised qualification for Licensing Executives, as is already being developed by LES USA and Canada and Council was charged to investigate this proposal further during the coming year.

During the afternoon, accompanying persons enjoyed a trip to Harewood House and Gardens where Thomas Chippendale furniture was the feature of a special exhibition. Frances Connor declared Harewood to be the best house of its kind that she had visited.

On Thursday evening, delegates and their partners were entertained by the Ariana String Quartet who complemented the Victorian atmosphere of the Majestic with a selection of music played during an excellent dinner which included Yorkshire Pudding and onion gravy served in the traditional manner. Shaun McCree had everyone spellbound with his magic before top band Mirage gave us the opportunity to let go of those tensions on the dance floor.

On Friday, whilst our accompanying persons drove away into the Dales returning in time for tea at Betty's, delegates got back to business with a further series of workshops and our second plenary speaker, Carol Tullo. Before the final plenary session, during which Trevor Hunter presented the results of the Licensing Survey carried out amongst LES B & I members, a wide ranging discussion ensued regarding many aspects of Licensing and the work of the Society.

Friday evening arrived, and it was time to relax at Joe Rigatoni's top Italian Restaurant when thirty-four members and their partners enjoyed good food and a high-spirited rendition, led by Stephen Powell, of "Ilkley Moor baht'at". Not to be outdone, Alison Charig, Linda O'Connor and Yvonne McKeown, led the response with a delightful performance of "Sweet Molly Malone".

The winning questionnaire number, drawn at Rigatoni's from those who completed the Licensing Survey was 1567. Please send the ticket to me to claim the Magnum of Champagne.

On Saturday, only the energetic remained, when eleven enjoyed a five mile walk around Ripley Castle swelled to sixteen for the pub lunch. As we passed through the hamlet of Clint, and just as he thought he'd achieved the freedom of retirement, new President, Chris Goodman, found himself back in the stocks - maybe a taste of things to come during his Presidential year?

Finally now that my year as President has come to a close I would like to thank you, my colleagues, in LES B&I and LESI for your help and encouragement and for making the past year very enjoyable and successful for our Society.

Trevor Hunter, Immediate Past President. 4 Wigton Park Close, Alwoodley, Leeds LS17 8UH

A View to the Future - Licensing as a Billion $ Business

Walter Willigan, Licensing Director of PricewaterhouseCoopers and formerly of IBM gave the delegates an inspired insight into how they should aim to get value from licensing in the new century by drawing on his years of experience at IBM.

Walter has watched computer technology change from a system using punch cards in the 1960s to a system relying heavily on the Internet today and in the process has seen successes and failures in the Industries approach to licensing.

In the early years developing computer technology was not easy. One of the major problems was that competitors copied innovative designs. On the other hand having a large number of patents does not guarantee a large income, some PC companies started with only 2 or 3 patents. Whilst it is important to value Intellectual Property (IP), in order to make money, products must be got into the market place. Companies had to learn how to "pick the jewels" out of their patent portfolios and exploit them to the maximum. Licensing was clearly the way forward. But how do you do it? Few companies publish material that gives an insight into their licensing strategy!

So, what do you want from a licensing strategy?

Here is Walter's checklist for evaluating the most important elements in extracting value from brands, know-how and patents through licensing:

• Do you have a formal internal process for identifying and managing your intellectual assets (including brands, know-how and patents)?
• Do you have a high-level business executive responsible for tapping revenue from these assets?
• Have you identified your core technologies?
• Have you identified what technologies are appropriate for licensing to others outside your company?
• Do you have a patent enforcement strategy that includes taking infringers to court?
• Is your company ahead of the competition in patenting key future technologies?
• Do you leverage your patent assets to ensure the adoption of industry standard platforms favourable to your products?
• Do you leverage intellectual property assets in joint venture and strategic alliance activities?
• Do you have a licensing income stream that helps fund continuing research and development?
• Do you communicate the value of your intellectual assets to your shareholders in your annual report?

If you can answer yes to the majority of these questions then you are already on the road to licensing success!

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Crown Copyright Licensing and Valuation

click here for the full text

Carol Tullo is Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office and the Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament (1997); Government Printer for Northern Ireland (1997); Queen's Printer for Scotland. Following a law degree and call to the bar in 1977 she practised in London. Her move into the public sector arose following the privatisation of the former Government department HMSO. A range of responsibilities relating to official publishing remained within the public sector embracing the management of Crown copyright as Queen's Printer appointed under Royal Letters Patent from Her Majesty to responsibility for advising Government departments on official publishing and copyright matters.

Whilst Carol recognised the approach to IP asset management, described by Walter Willigan, the organisation for which she works, UK plc, has additional responsibilities and tensions.

Crown copyright is defined by section 163 of the Copyright Patents and Designs Act 1988 as works made by officers or servants of the Crown in the course of their duties. This incorporates a diverse mix of works created, commissioned and acquired by the Crown. Not all parts of government are Crown bodies and therefore within Crown copyright but we are broadly talking about official central government materials and information. Copyright is the means by which government protects the integrity and status of the material.

Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) is charged with driving forward the Government's commitment to widen access to and encourage the use of official information. The responsibility for copyright is derived directly from HM The Queen in Letters Patent.

Why do we license at all? The policy agenda is driven by maintaining maximum access and use of official information while ensuring that the authority of the material is not compromised.

The mix of copyright and IPR has created a market in tradeable government information. There are costs involved in maintaining and publishing the material, not all of which can be charged to the taxpayers but it is difficult to separate these areas without creating a disincentive to potential users.

The Government is committed to encouraging the use of e-commerce throughout the UK and in addition to deliver the option of electronic service delivery of government transactions. In 1997 the HMSO Web site received 15,000 hits a month; it now receives 2 million!

As part of the Spending Review 2000 (delivered 18 July), a ministerial team investigated how to deliver the conditions to get government online, recognising in the process that government produces:

• Raw data - information that is collected
• Value added data - material enhanced facilitating its use and effectiveness

Model class licence

A class licence sets out standard terms and obligations enabling the re-use of a particular class or category of material. In September 1999 a User Group on Crown Copyright was set up. Eight months on, a radical departure for licensing government information was endorsed with a plain English licence that can operate in a click-use-pay environment. Although the precise scope has yet to be decided, it marks a new departure for potential users to be free to use material as soon as they have completed the licence.

Information Asset Register

There is both a perception that there is untapped potential for exploiting government's IP assets and a matching frustration in locating information. To this end the Government launched the IAR in May 1999 and an implementation group have been taking this forward under the leadership of HMSO's Information Manager.

Waiver

It was recognised that some categories of information are so crucial to the relationship of the citizen and government that access and use should be without restriction. Although asserted for reasons of integrity, copyright is now waived in some cases (eg legislation, national curriculum materials).

Branding

The Crown copyright © symbol confers status and authorship as a badge or imprimatur of quality. The badge is designed to encourage confidence in the material - not to deter re-use!

The Future

The next few weeks will see a number of key Information Age initiatives published. They will recognise that e-commerce and the global market place require us all to adapt. Government is meeting the challenge in delivering the next chapter of its IP asset management as it slots in to UKOnline.gov.uk.

"OVER THE COUNTER (OTC) PHARMA GROWTH"
Report from the Harrogate Healthcare Workshop

The OTC marketplace is of increasing importance to the pharmaceutical and healthcare companies as they aim to increase brand awareness, cope with products that will come off patent and increase their market penetration.

The workshop in Harrogate addressed the licensing and marketing issues that are relevant to the OTC market place. Steve Mansfield from Boots Healthcare International opened the workshop and addressed the issues of managing the brand and the technology together, how to ensure that the deal is closed swiftly and the sequencing of the process as a whole. Steve made many points that are relevant to successful licensing in general and that, due to the many pressures that fall on us throughout this process, can be forgotten.

We find ourselves under immense time pressures during the negotiation process and if not managed these pressures alone can jeopardise the licensing deal. It's critical to be able to step to one side of the negotiation bubble and take "a birds eye view" of the management of the process as a whole. Maintaining patience as the time pressures kick in is not easy and here we would all benefit from the lessons to be learnt in Japan, where patience is mandatory in Japanese negotiations!

It is useful to be able to stand back and analyse the time pressures. If this can be done, we can often find that many of these pressures can be done away with, there are frequently time constraints that are imposed without any real need, these may be both external and internal. Without doubt there must be a time frame within which to work but just make sure that all elements of the deal have been prioritised and that the time frame is realistic and strives towards an economically workable agreement.

James Hand from SmithKline Beecham in the US talked about the process of moving products from prescription to self-medication. This move may be made as part of a patent strategy or to create dual status for a product. This has been the case with certain antacids where the high dose is available on prescription for severe indications (ulcers) and the lower dose is available as self-medication for heartburn. This dual status helps to increase brand awareness, the products carrying similar names in different markets. Another example here is Nicorette (gum) and Nicoderm (patch), where the two products were licensed at different times. The consumer accepted first that the "on prescription" product was safe and assumed the same when its OTC partner product arrived.

Dr Brian Whittle from Neutraceuticals Ltd talked about the speed to market for natural products with a safe history and a positive history. Brian also conveyed the message that IPR exists within the novelty of presentation, they are able to generate patents, trademarks and copyright protection with their "early proof of concept" natural products.

We are all aware that fishy oils such as cod liver oil are meant to be beneficial to our health but most of us avoid the product because we find the taste and after affect intolerable. This is a life style decision, we are not normally in a position where we are told that we must take this product. Neutraceuticals have cunningly managed to taste mask cod liver oil and present it as a salmon flavoured breakfast pate………no more excuses!

Christi Mitchell
LES B&I Vice President
Chair of the Healthcare Committee

Your Last Chance to Debate the Effect of the Distance Selling Regulations on E-Commerce Seminar

There are increasing concerns over the effect on businesses engaged in selling products, services, or information to consumers on-line, of draft regulations which have been issued by the DTI. These seek to implement the EC Distance Selling Directive (97/7/EC). The latest draft text of the regulations can be found at http://www2.dti.gov.uk/cacp/ca/distance/annex_c.htm#top.

In the view of Ben Goodger and Dai Davis of the LES E commerce/IT Special Interest Group they are even more bureaucratic and complex than the Directive itself, and unnecessarily so. Ben and Dai consider that this kind of legislation raises serious questions marks over how the Government's stated aim of making Britain the best place for e- commerce in the world by 2002 can realistically be achieved.

There is still time to make your views known about these Regulations. LES is planning a special half-day morning meeting in September in central London to examine the effects of the Regulations and debate what representations LES should be making on behalf of its members who are active in, or entering, the electronic arena, in order to prevent any unnecessary layers of compliance being imposed which might put the UK at a competitive disadvantage.

At our meeting we aim to have representatives from relevant industry bodies and associations to put both sides of the debate - we hope to have speakers from the British Retail Consortium and the Consumers' Association. There will also be a legal analysis of the Regulations and the Directive, to bring participants fully up to speed.

The date of the event is planned for Tuesday 5th September 2000, and a more detailed Meeting Notice will be circulated in due course. Keep your diary free on that date and come and make your views known...while there is still time!

For further information contact:
Ben Goodger (ben@iprights.com) or
Dai Davis (d.davis@nabarro.com).

Plenty of attractions at LES USA and Canada's Annual Meeting

LES USA and Canada, Annual Meeting , 10-14 September 2000' Sheraton Centre, Toronto, Canada

LES USA and Canada's Annual Meeting is always very popular and this year's venue, Toronto, Canada should attract record numbers of delegates.

Toronto is an absolutely beautiful city in late Summer and to avoid disappointment you should book your place early. Toronto's Sheraton Centre is one of Canada's largest hotels located in the city centre for business, the arts theatre and some of the finest restaurants in North America.

Details of the meeting may be found on LES USA and Canada web site at www.usa-canada.les.org, click on "meetings".

The theme of the meeting is "The LES Compass - A Guide to 21st Century Licensing". The programme Chair, Arthur Rose, and his team have put together an action-packed five days of preliminary sessions, workshops, add-ons and professional development courses. There will be three days of preliminary sessions, three days of workshops, two days of add-ons and two days of professional development programmes. If it is education and networking you are looking for you should not miss this meeting.

Preliminary session speakers include:

• Mr Quinn Spitzer - A regular commentator for CNN
• Mr Dodd - President of Solvay Pharmaceuticals
• Mr Christian Cabou - of General Electric Medical Systems
• Mark Collar - President of Proctor and Gamble Pharmaceuticals
• J Walker - Founder and Vice Chairman of Priceline.com and Chairman of Walker Digital Corporation

On this occasion there will be particular emphasis, in the preliminary sessions and workshops, on healthcare and e-Commerce along with the most up-to-date thinking on intellectual asset management.

The Social Programme should please everyone:

• The traditional opening cocktail reception on Sunday evening - an ideal opportunity for networking
• On Monday evening a spectacular cabaret - Toronto is the third largest theatre district in the world
• Wednesday night will conclude with an "out-of-this-world northern lights spectacle, with entertainment and dancing

The sports programme is not to be missed:

• Golf at the Diamondback course
• Tennis at the exclusive Donalda club
• Fly fishing on the Grand River at the Upper Credit River Trout Club
• LES Fun Run over 5 and 10km - the ever popular predawn event - along the Martin Goodman Trail

The accompanying persons' programme offers your guests the ideal opportunity to explore Toronto with tours that should appeal to everyone, including the Seventh Wonder of The World - Niagara Falls!

The compass is set to be an absolute winner for the first LES USA and Canada meeting of the Millennium.

Attend and Enjoy!

John Woodley, Meeting Chair

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LES US and Canada has developed a four-module course on the fundamentals of licensing. Subject to restrictions to ensure strict quality control, it is proposed to permit this to be used without charge by other LES societies. It will be interesting to see whether this material can be used, possibly with local adaptations, for introducing the topic into British universities. Stephen Powell

LES International Conference - May 2000, Amsterdam

Many congratulations to our LES Benelux colleagues, led by President Emma van Oosterom, for organising and hosting this year's very successful and enjoyable LESI Annual Conference in Amsterdam. Following on from the two-day LESI delegates meeting at which LES Britain and Ireland were well represented by Trevor Hunter, Chris Goodman, Christi Mitchell, Stephen Powell, Barry Quest, Nigel Jones, Jeremy Brown and Renate Siebrasse, at which incorporation of LESI was finally approved, some 560 participants from 48 countries enjoyed three days of first class plenary sessions and a choice of fourteen workshops. Programme innovations this year included an electronic voting system to carry out an instant survey of the demography of the audience and its views on LES issues, and add-on workshops on Communication skills and strategies - surely one of the essentials for a successful career - and The Business of Technology Transfer Consultancy. The latter, organised and presented by that tireless worker for LES, Crispin Marsh, brought together such respected practitioners as Robert Goldscheider and Willy Manfroy to impart their experiences to those advising third parties on the commercial aspects of technology transfer.

An extensive social programme was organised to explore the history and sights of Amsterdam, and the conference culminated in a Gala Dinner and Dance at the Beurs van Berlage, an historic building built in 1898 and commissioned by the City of Amsterdam as a centre for trade. All trade and stock exchanges have now moved out of the building, and it is now used as a Palazzo Publico as its designer, Hendrik Berlage, originally intended. LESI President, Heinz Goddar, sportingly added to the evening's entertainment by being cajoled into joining the entertainers on stage.

Report by Trevor Hunter

Committee Report

EC/Laws Committee, Amsterdam

The two main issues occupying the EC/Laws Committee at present are the continuing debate about changes in the way in which patents are obtained and enforced in Europe, and competition law aspects of technology transfer agreements.

There have been numerous references in these pages over the last few years to the revived attempts by the European Commission to change the European patent system. In 1997, the Commission issued a Green Paper seeking input on a proposal to create a new, single, "Community Patent", covering the whole of the EU. This was met with considerable enthusiasm and honest unanimous support. Despite that, little has happened since. Until, that is, earlier this month (July) when the Commission finally communicated its draft Regulation on the creation of this new patent to the Parliament. The full text of the draft Regulation was not available to us as we went to print, so a more detailed analysis will follow in the next issue of News Exchange. However, it is understood that, on translations, the proposal is that applications will be filed, and patents published and granted in any one of the three working languages of the European Patent Office (English, French and German), and the claims would have to be translated into the other two languages. In other words, the community Patent would operate in the same way as European Patents under the current system. In relation to enforcement, press reports simply say that the proposal is to create a new centralised Community tribunal within the framework of the European Court of Justice. It is unclear whether this would be a single court of the first instance, or a single court of appeal - a critical issue.

Meanwhile the EPO is putting forward its own proposals for changing the way in which patents granted under the current systems (national and epc) are enforced and a proposal is to be discussed at an inter-governmental conference in London in October of this year.

In my role as Chairman of the LES International's European Committee, I led a debate on these important issues at a workshop at the LES International meeting in Amsterdam. A summary of his paper is available on request.

Turning to competition law issues, members will recall that the Committee organised a very well attended half-day meeting in London in February (immediately before this year's Annual Lunch) to discuss the implications for members of the implementation of the UK's Competition Act and, at the European level, the new vertical restraints block exemption. We have now turned out minds from the vertical to the horizontal, and are reviewing the Commission's proposals in relation to horizontal agreements (which include R&D agreements). By way of follow up to the February meeting, the Committee organised a workshop at the annual conference, led by Benedict Bird and Kerry Watson. Excellent presentations were followed by a discussion of working examples, and a helpful discussion of the issues raised. We will be taking account of comments at the workshop in formulating our submission to the Commission and the UK Government on these proposals.

Committee members, Dai Davis and Jennifer Wilson, have also been busy on your behalf, preparing comments to the Government on the criminal law provisions in IP and conditional access directive and WIPO's proposed changes on procedures for recording trademark licences, respectively.

Finally, news that Benedict Ely, a committed committee member, has had to resign following a career change. He will shortly be leaving his current firm to set up a new delivery business called "Back & Call" - supporting the ever-expanding e-commerce trend. We wish him well.

Nigel Jones (Chair).

LOOKING FOR A NEW PARTNER?

The technology licensing market is estimated at $105 billion and growing rapidly. Corporations spend billions of dollars annually on research and development of all kinds of technology from detergents to semiconductors, but it is estimated that ninety percent of all great ideas never see the light of day. An enormous pool of innovation is lying unused in company archives. At least it was!

Lycra, the amazing high-tech fibre developed by Du Pont in 1958, was a classic example of a great technological advance but it was being under exploited, or so believed Ben du Pont, former global development manager for Lycra. He believed that there were far more uses for Lycra than the traditional cycling shorts and stretch underwear, however, the problem was how to find those uses. In 1998 he asked a group of engineers to develop some new uses for the product. He then telephoned potential customers himself. It was a thankless task as it was reliant on him to second-guess those companies who may have had an interest in the product's new uses. He recognised that there were probably hundreds of potential customers that he would never find.

An idea was shaping in his mind of how companies could make better use of their untapped wealth and, finally, in summer1999, he left the company and started yet2.com Inc, a web site for buying, selling and licensing intellectual property; a dating agency for IP! Rapidly a number of US organisations were signing up to become "founding partners" and offer their technologies on the web site.

The company's Head Office is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. It also has branch offices in Nevada, the UK and Japan and has already become a global marketplace for the exchange of intellectual assets. By April 2000 it was boasting 36 partner companies including 3M, AlliedSignal, Boeing, DuPont, Dow Chemicals, Ford Motor Co, Royal Philips Electronics and Toyota.

It is estimated that it takes 18-24 months to close a licensing deal and at least half that time is spent looking for a suitable partner. yet2.com's aim is to speed up and smooth out that process. As the company only started trading in February 2000 it is too soon to make a judgement about its success or failure but the future certainly looks bright. Companies can no longer afford to leave the results of their research gathering dust in the basement.

Mike Edelman of yet2.com will be presenting a paper at the LES Benelux Half-Day Topic meeting in Brussels on 27 September 2000.

For further details about this meeting please visit http://www.les-europe.org/benelux or contact Saskia van Dijk-Struyk c/o TNO tel: +31 15 269 49 23; fax: +31 15 261 24 03

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