Intellectual Property (IP) Wales

IP Wales® - Supporting Innovation

A constituent member of the Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law IP Wales incorporates a vibrant research agenda to provide insight on national and international IP issues and inform policy-making decisions.

IP Wales® is a £4m award winning business support initiative. In recognition of its success in raising awareness and understanding of Intellectual Property (IP) within indigenous business, the Director of IP Wales was invited to work for the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), achieving National recognition for services to intellectual property and business, earning an OBE under the Queen’s Birthday Honours list 2009.

In our first phase of European Union funded operation our mission was to provide Welsh small & medium sized enterprises (SMEs) with the knowledge and financial means to commercialise their intellectual assets. Our aim was to raise levels of awareness and understanding of intellectual assets, allow businesses to make informed commercial choices about protecting these assets, and to help Welsh SMEs sustain and grow their businesses, by integrating an intellectual assets strategy into the heart of their business plan. Since our launch in June 2002, we have provided strategic advice to over 750 clients, helped to capture and protect 205 patents, 60 trade marks and 12 industrial designs around the World and furnished financial support for 25 IP licensing deals.

Our finding is the main ingredients for the success of knowledge based businesses are access to advanced technology & know-how, good management and finance. Our experience is a better management team will make more commercial use of a poorer technology than a poorer management team will make of a better technology and that finance will seek out good management teams. Our focus has therefore become researching the law relating to intellectual assets management & transactions.

Caption Picture: Andrew Beale O.B.E. (Director, IP Wales) [right of picture] receives the Judges Special Award from Kenneth Adamo (Partner, Jones Day) at the WORLDleaders European Intellectual Property Awards

IP Wales Online Initiative (2017-2020)

IP crime is traditionally viewed as counterfeiting (false branding) and piracy (illegal copying) but cybercriminals (& some State players) are increasingly coming to recognise the value of confidential data held by businesses, be it sensitive information about the business operation (trade secrets & know-how) or customer information such as passwords and credit card details (made even more topical with the imminent arrival of the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016).

These attacks on confidential data are happening globally with increasing rapidity and ever more complexity. Zero-day vulnerabilities (where hackers have discovered and exploit a software security breach before a fix is available) are increasing exponentially.

In response IP Wales (an award-winning business support initiative operating out of Welsh Academia) has launched a new Online Initiative 2017-2020, the aim of which is to help SMEs to protect their IP online.