Wednesday whimsies

Time for the UKIPO, DoE and industry to talk? From Katfriend and IP education expert Professor Ruth Soetendorp comes the following insight:

Not all schools yet teach IP, it seems ...

"Between 35% and 50% of young Europeans can display attitudes which favour counterfeiting or illegal downloading". This statistic prompted the OHIM Observatory to commission research which has now been published as IP Education in school curricula in the EU Member States (with some non-EU comparisons (here).  This document is designed to assist educational policymakers in Member States to meet the challenge of the digital era.   

The study took IP education to mean classroom-acquired competences that enable young people to become familiar with intellectual property, understand its potential to generate income and economic growth and lead them to respect intellectual property rights, whether their own or those of others.  

While never a subject in its own right, IP rights can be found in curricula for entrepreneurship, citizenship, arts, ICT and STEM education. Unsurprisingly, copyright is the most commonly referenced IP right in the classroom, with patents, trade marks and design trailing. Good examples of private-public partnerships were revealed, in particular between commercial enterprises and relevant government ministries.   

IP is taught at primary level more among non-EU comparators, who are also more likely to include infringement issues in their teaching.    

OHIM is now prepared to set up a specialised network of education experts and stakeholders to develop appropriate, modern resources to include videos, games, tutorials, e-learning portals and other online content.  

PS. The UK England country profile (pp 108-110) paints a picture of various initiatives from UKIPO and industry. Annex 2 (pp198-205) (which presents Education ministries' responses to the questionnaire which was a key element of the study's methodology) sadly shows a NIL return from UK England. Is it not time for the UKIPO, the Department of Education and industry to talk?

China comes to town. The UK Intellectual Property Office has a China-UK IP symposium coming up which it is really and truly keen to promote. It starts with breakfast, ends with a reception and has a couple of further refuelling sessions, the most notable of which is lunch.  Anyway, full details of this event can be accessed by clicking here.  According to the latest and best information available:

The UK-China Intellectual Property Symposium will be held at the Royal Society in London on 21 October 2015. It is an excellent opportunity for businesses to engage with policy-makers to understand the current IP systems in both countries and to learn about future reforms. The Symposium will be opened by the UK’s Minister for Intellectual Property, Baroness Neville-Rolfe, and will cover all the intellectual property rights as well as sessions focused on anti-counterfeiting and judicial enforcement. Each session will include a panel of speakers from the UK and China, with government, industry and academic representatives discussing latest developments and key issues for IP in both China and the UK.

3D Printing and Open Hardware Licensing Research: can you help?  Katfriend, scholar and JIPLP contributor Rosa Maria Ballardini (Assistant Professor of IP Law, Hanken School of Economics) has contacted the Kats with the following request: as a part of a research project (based in Finland) we are looking to find companies that use open hardware 3D online repositories (e.g. CAD data) in their product development activities. Our question is this:

Have you ever used open hardware or 3D printing online repositories (such as Thingiverse, Shapeways, GrabCad, Inmoov or OpenBionics) to support product development activities in your organization? If so please email me at rosa.ballardini@hanken.fi to see how we can help each other!

Rosa has another article coming out in JIPLP soon, this time on 3D printing.  Do help her if you can.