Scotland’s Strength In Innovation
Scotland has a strong innovation culture, from world renowned universities and research capability to innovative companies in a wide range of sectors. With the creation of three innovation districts in Glasgow, the City is placing a new emphasis on reinvestment and growth of its innovation economy. Obtaining a return on innovation spending is key for growth in many sectors of the economy, such as Energy, Food and Drink, the Creative Industries, and Life Sciences.
Additionally, it drives business formation, supporting the talent created by Scotland’s academic community and innovative companies.
Innovation investment return can typically be generated by:
• Legal methods such as identification of intellectual assets associated with the innovation and protection of such assets; and
• Economic methods, such as lead time, operational efficiency, or market distribution.
From the export of renewable energy expertise, whisky and food, and digital products or the development of life science technologies, many Scottish companies are taking Scottish ingenuity onto the global stage. A strategy to protect intellectual assets in home markets and allow expansion to markets further afield often requires a long term strategy to manage risk and to help drive company growth and value.
Global Ambitions
Whilst intellectual property rights have evolved significantly over the last few decades to allow for increased global
harmonisation, many registerable IP legal rights, such as patents, trade marks, and registered designs are still protectable by individual national rights. Working with experienced IP advisors that understand the intellectual property rights which might be obtained in different geographies can simplify the process of protecting intellectual assets in overseas territories, and ensure commercially useful rights are economically obtained.
As in many other areas of business, starting off on the correct footing is critical for success.
Focussing on fundamentals such as:
• Protecting confidential information,
• Identifying intellectual assets as they are created, and
• Correctly determining and ensuring ownership of intellectual assets,
provides a strong foundation enabling a global intellectual asset protection strategy to be developed – taking into account the markets in which you, your partners or competitors might operate.
If overseas markets are important to your business, developing a global intellectual assets strategy to exploit such assets and minimise risk from the rights of others, can maximise your long term impact in the marketplace and generate return on innovation spending.
To discuss a tailored intellectual asset strategy for your business, contact our expert team at Murgitroyd.
Murgitroyd is hosting an event on 27th March from 1600-1700 in Glasgow titled “Top tips for protecting your brand and products in China and other Asian markets”. Please contact laurence.cheney@murgitroyd.com to register.
This article appeared in The Herald on the 18th March 2019.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article