Issue Brief 14
There are many different situations when ‘intellectual property rights’ and ‘education’ will be topics of interest and enquiry. Here the IPAN Education Group offers some providers and resources that you may find useful.
IP creators
If you are innovative, inventive or creative in your work, you create intellectual property rights and may want to learn more about those rights. IPR Education will help you learn how to protect what’s yours, how to exploit your rights commercially, and how to use someone else’s IPR without creating a problem.
Self managed learning resources can be found on the Intellectual Property Office site www.ipo.gov.uk. It’s the ideal starting point to take your questions. The World Intellectual Property Organization has a global perspective, and interesting case studies www.wipo.org. Resources for the creative industries, provided by Own-it www.own-it.org include IPR short courses.
teachers and academics
Teachers and academics may be keen to know what their intellectual property rights are in respect of learning and teaching materials created in the course of their work, or in respect of journal articles or other publications.
Universities UK (www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/) and the Higher Education Academy (www.heacademy.ac.uk/) have addressed these issues, and make helpful information available.
students
Students, researchers and staff who are involved in projects will want to know more about ownership and exploitation of IPR created and used in the course of their research. University technology transfer organisations provide IPR education opportunities, including the Association for University Research and Industry Links www.auril.org.uk. Much can be learnt from the recently published guide to IP asset management (http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipasset-management.pdf) about managing IPR in institutions.
employers and employees
Employers and employees needing to learn more about the intricacies of IPR ownership and how to make the most of intellectual property will find the Intellectual Property Office site helpful.
potential IP advisors
If you are considering a career advising others how to protect, manage and exploit their intellectual property, you will find IPR education opportunities at many universities or through the intellectual property professional bodies, some of which are detailed below.
The Universities of Bournemouth, Brunel, Manchester, Nottingham, Queen Mary UL, have IPR research centres and post graduate programmes accredited by the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys www.cipa.org.uk and Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys www.itma.org.uk. Many other universities offer Intellectual Property Rights studies as part of LLM, MSc, MBA and PhD programmes. The Intellectual Property Regulation Board www.ipreg.org.uk regulates the IP professions, and is currently consulting on a revised qualification regime for patent attorney and trade mark attorney litigators to facilitate the grant of relevant rights to registered patent and trade mark attorneys. The Licensing Executives Society www.lesi.org offers IP education opportunities for professionals engaged in IPR exploitation.
education, learning and teaching suggestions
Teachers and academics wondering how best to introduce their students to IPR and to provide education opportunities to satisfy student curiosity about this crucial business asset may find the following suggestions useful:
The European Patent Office Academy ‘Patent Kit’ provides a resource for teaching students about patents www.epo.org/learning-events/materials/kit.html. The UK IPO ‘Think Kit’ has online case study resources appropriate for higher school and undergraduate learners: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/whyuse/education/education-thinkkit.htm.
european IP educators forum – developing IPR education
The European Intellectual Property Teachers Network www.eiptn.org provides a forum for sharing and developing IPR education ideas amongst university teachers who deliver IPR programmes across disciplines and faculties. A resource sponsored by the Higher Education Academy Engineering and Law subject centres http://www.engsc.ac.uk/resources/intellectual-property-rights contains diverse materials to help introduce IPR education in the non-law curriculum.
access to further information through IPAN
The IPAN Education Group offers the above suggestions as a starting point. Numerous opportunities to acquire IPR education have, for reasons of being concise, been omitted. IPAN knows also that intellectual property rights awareness, amongst SMEs especially, could be improved. IPAN is working to encourage professional bodies to include IP education in the accreditation requirements for new members. IPAN feels UK plc’s fortunes would improve if graduates left university knowing something about intellectual property rights. The National Union of Students agrees!