Jane Lambert
The Coventry and Warwick Local Enterprise Growth Hub's SME2017 opens at the National Exhibition Centre at 09:00 today and runs until 16:00 tomorrow. It is billed as "the Midlands biggest exhibition for SMEs", There is a massive exhibition and there are two days of seminars with talks on finance, funding, innovation, IT, marketing and outsourcing. Tickets are free and may be ordered through the event's website.
The Intellectual Property Office will be at the show and one of the speakers will be Gary Townley. He will speak in the Innovation Platform Theatre from 15:00 to 16:00 today. You will find a summary of his talk by clicking the "Innovation Theatre" tab on the "Seminars" page of the SME2017 website. Gary will be followed on the platform by Mark Houghton of Patent Outsourcing Ltd. of Bakewell who will speak from 16:00 to 17:00. You will find a summary of Mark's talk immediately below Gary's.
Between them, Gary and Mark should give you a good introduction to intellectual property and how it can be used to protect your investment in branding, design, technology or creativity. There is, of course, a limit to what they can cover in two hours. If you require further information locally, you can visit the Business and IP Centre at the Library of Birmingham where you will find more resources online and in print as well as talks and clinics with patent and trade mark attorneys. If it is hard for you to get to Birmingham there are other Business and IP Centres in Exeter, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Northampton, Norwich and Sheffield and Patent Information Units in the rest of the UK.
You will also find information about IP and technology law in the West Midlands in this blog. This blog is connected to NIPC Law which contains in-depth articles on IP and technology law, NIPC Branding with articles on trade marks, domain names, geographical indications and passing off for entrepreneurs and their investors, NIPC Inventors Club with information on patenting, trade secrets and starting a new business for inventors and entrepreneurs and other regional blogs covering developments in the East of England, East Midlands, London, North West, Severn Estuary, South East and Yorkshire. There are also features on the Midlands Engine, Northern Powerhouse, the Brexit negotiations and all sorts of other special topics.
If you want to discuss this article or IP generally, call me on 020 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.
