From today GCSE and NQ students across the country will be given access to specialised intellectual property (IP) training, preparing them for the future and ensuring they understand how to protect their creative works.‘ Think Kit’ lesson plans, designed by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and launched today by the Government, will give teachers of Business Studies, Media Studies, PHSE and Music access to brand new online resources and toolkits designed to improve the next generation’s understanding of IP. The lesson plans and online courses are the result of extensive qualitative research by the IPO involving hundreds of teachers across the UK which found that teachers and students wanted to improve their IP knowledge. The lesson plans have been funded by The Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM).”The full text of the press release is attached. The IPKat certainly welcomes any initiative to raise the awareness and understanding of IP among students.
Conferences near and far--Two IP conferences, one to take place next week and the other to occur at the end of 2016, are worthy of a Kat mention.
As for the program around the corner, all Spanish speakers take note: IPKat friend Mariona Baldo has informed us that the annual conference of the Spanish Group of AIPPI will take place next week, February 18th and 19th, at the Meliá Hotel in Madrid.There is still time to register for what looks like a most interesting two-day program.
As for the second program, fellow Kat Nicola recently reported on the growing interest in quantitative analysis of IP. In that connection, the OECD has announced that its 2016 IP Statistics for Decision Makers (IPSMD) conference will be hosted by IP Australia and will take place in Sydney, Australia, November 15th-16th.The IPKat will endeavor to bring further information about this event as they become known.
This Think Kat (sorry, Think Kit) program is a very welcome development. But why only now? IP has been with us and quite important to society for a long time, and school education even more so of course. So what has prompted this new, useful, yet obvious invention?
ReplyDeleteOHIM? Isn't that the EUIPO now? Or is that not yet?
ReplyDeleteThis is a great resource. Its effectiveness would be enhanced greatly if IPO and Department of Education could collaborate on initatives to
ReplyDeleteencourage teachers to make use of the resource. Teacher Training colleges should be encouraged to include Intellectual Property teaching, and the
excellent IPO resources to support it, in their programmes for training teachers
eine patente frau:
ReplyDeleteThink Kit has been around for ages, and it is really good. maybe the online aspect is new, but the package including lesson plans on all aspects of IP is not. However, in these league table days, teachers probably cannot afford the time to do this non curriculum stuff.
Worth pointing out the link eiptn.org in connection with teaching IP, in case some people are unaware of it?
ReplyDeleteAs the press release indicates, it is in fat relevant to the curriculum of a limit range of subjects, namely Business Studies, Media Studies, PHSE and Music.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is unlikely to be used beyond those subjects, given the present State-Sector set-up of league tables and performance-related pay, where secondary school teachers have little free time to have a life, let alone find space in the highly prescriptive curricula to explore subjects other than those that their pupils will be examined in. Our local (academy) schools are experiencing severe budget cuts and teacher recruitment problems, and I doubt that their finances will stretch to anything non-essential.