26th April is World Intellectual Property Day, a World Intellectual Property Organisation-led initiative to celebrate the role played by intellectual property rights in encouraging innovation and creativity in other sectors.
Reach for Gold
The focus for 2019 is “Reach for Gold” – a deep dive into the world of sports; and how IP rights encourage and protect the innovation and creativity that drive the development of sport and its enjoyment around the world. Learn more about how patents and designs are crucial to growth and development in sport, how trademarks and branding facilitate and maximise commercial opportunities, appeal and revenue, how broadcast rights shape and cement the relationship between sport and the media plus much more by visiting the World Intellectual Property Day website.
Why IP rights are important
It is not just the World Intellectual Property Organisation who are marking the occasion! Trainee Trade Mark Attorney Noelle Pearson with leading IP firm Marks & Clerk has shared five reasons why intellectual property rights have proved a winner for Scottish sport and helped protect its commercial growth, from Andy Murray trademarking his own name after his first Wimbledon win to the match-day pie providers who also benefited from the same approach to trademark protection… Read Noelle’s article here.
The Intellectual Property Office has also celebrated World IP Day and further explored the link between IP rights and encouraging the progress and development of sport around the world. As part of this, the IPO welcomed Great British Paralympic archer David Phillips to their Newport-based office earlier this week (24th April); to talk about his experience of how innovative technologies and initiatives allowed him to return to his archery practice and eventual compete for Team GB in the Rio Paralympics, despite being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the mid-90s.
Alongside this, the IPO have been celebrating World IP Day with an ongoing exhibition of case study posters charting international innovations in a wide variety of sporting fields, as well as an ‘Olympics and Counterfeits’ exhibit in their Newport office; allowing their team to see at a glance how IP and the world of sport fit together.
