Will this year’s World IP Day 2023 be the most important yet?

The 26th of April every year is World Intellectual Property Day.  It gives people all over the world an opportunity to celebrate innovation and the role intellectual property plays in encouraging people and businesses to develop something new and something better.

Since it was launched in 2000, the number of countries participating has grown from 59 to 189 in 2022.  This number is expected to increase further this year given the pivotal part innovation will play in combatting the current economic and environmental challenges we face.

The monumental scale of this task is the reason we believe this year’s World IP Day 2023 will be the most important yet.

Why is IP fundamental to innovation?

The question you may be asking yourself is why IP is so fundamental to the innovation process.

Once an idea has passed from the research and development phase into the commercial phase (when it hits the market and starts benefitting its users and making the inventors money), it must be protected against other people using it for their own benefit (at least without the permission of and without a financial benefit for the owner).  Not only does misuse cost the inventor revenue and market share, it also means they have wasted the significant time, effort and money they invested in developing their technology, product or service.

The different types of IP you’ll need to protect and build your business will depend on the nature of your business and on what you want your business to achieve.  However, the four primary IP rights are:

1. Patents 

Patents prevent anyone else from using your technical innovations for the next 20 years.  Once you have a patent, you can license your products and processes to others to create an additional revenue stream.

2. Trade marks 

Trade marks protect any names, phrases, sounds or symbols used in association with your products or services and are therefore vital to building your brand and your reputation within your market. Trade mark protection lasts for 10 years but can be renewed in perpetuity.

3. Designs

Design rights protect the appearance of a product in terms of its lines, contours, colours, shape, texture, or materials.

4. Trade secrets 

Trade secrets are sometimes the forgotten IP right.  However, they are a powerful protection option.  A trade secret can cover anything that gives you an advantage over your competitors and adds value to your business as long as it’s kept secret.

5. Copyright 

Copyright protects the written or artistic expressions fixed in, for example, media, novels, poems, songs, or movies.

Why is innovation more important today than ever before?

Innovation has never been as important as it is today.  This is something not lost on the UK government.  They recently launched the UK’s Innovation Strategy which has been designed to ‘place innovation at the centre of everything this nation does’.  It will be supported by:

• Increased private sector levels of R&D investment
• Rapid public investment into areas outside of the South East
• Greater support for innovation clusters
• Reduced bureaucracy around funding

However, the UK is not alone.  It is widely felt that innovation is going to lead the global response to the challenges and crises the world is facing.

From a purely economic perspective, the world is still reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

IP has already played a huge part in bringing us through the pandemic.  The most public example of this was the development of the vaccines. IP ensured the pharmaceutical companies involved could protect the research and development of vaccines and the protection they enjoyed incentivized them to increase the resources they invested in their development.  This resulted in the record-breaking time in which the companies created and distributed multiple vaccines across the world.

However, new technology and new ideas are going to be just as important as we look to bounce back from the financial effects of the pandemic.  The next generation of innovators will generate the new investment, new revenues and new markets required to reinvigorate and accelerate the world’s economies.

Innovation is also going to be key to meeting the challenges of the environmental, energy and food crises we need to tackle.

With regards to the environment, innovation in renewable energy technologies and carbon capture methods will be essential if we are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change.

With regards to the food crises, new protein sources, foodstuffs and farming methods are already relieving the pressures on traditional agriculture.  Meanwhile, the foodtech and agritech sectors’ adoption of AI and machine learning is improving the yield, quality cost-efficiency and distribution of food production.

However, without IP protection, there is no reward and therefore no incentive for companies to invest in and develop these new technologies.  There is also no incentive for investors to invest in innovative new companies.

IP is also important to encouraging the speed and scale of innovation.  IP enables innovators, scientists, and researchers across different industries and countries to collaborate and share ideas.  This is leading to more effective solutions to the climate, food and energy crises being developed more quickly.

However, the way these ideas are distributed must also be addressed.

The internet has made the world a very small place.  It is easier than ever to instantly share digital content on a global scale.  If this potential to transfer ideas, data and content is not going to negatively impact the innovators behind these ideas and this data and content, it must be protected by a cohesive and collaborative international intellectual property system.

While organisations like the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) are working hard to establish this level of cohesion and cooperation, their aims and achievements must be kept in the public eye.  This is another reason World IP Day 2023 is the most important yet.

2023: Women and IP

Another reason this year’s World IP Day is set to be the most important yet is its focus is on ‘Women and IP: Accelerating innovation and creativity’.

Looking specifically at the UK, all five technologies the government identified in its new Science and Technology Framework as being integral to the country’s future growth are fields in which women are currently underrepresented (both at a senior level and throughout).  UK innovation efforts are missing out on a huge pool of untapped talent and potential.  According to the World Bank, if women were supported to set up and progress businesses at the same rate of men, there would be economic gains of up to $6 trillion.

Studies have also repeatedly shown that truly diverse and inclusive teams are more innovative, and that companies that embrace diversity are more profitable.  This is partly because a larger talent pool generates a larger number of valuable new ideas.  It is also because a diverse team brings diverse perspectives to the table.  Female innovators play a vital role in developing products and processes that cater to the needs of the entire population.

The next few years must see huge growth in the number of female innovators.  Events like World IP Day 2023 will be instrumental to achieving this growth by showing innovative and creative women how to protect, progress, commercialise and monetise their ideas.

If World IP Day 2023 plays any part in beginning to unlock the $6 trillion the World Bank forecasts female innovators can deliver, it definitely will be the most important World IP Day yet.