THUR - PIUG 2022 Virtual

T H U R S D A Y M O R N I N G

The Role of IP Offices in Patent Information—A Personal View Nigel Clarke (Stanfield Clarke Associates) 10:55 – 11:25 am

ABSTRACT World Patent Information commemorated four decades years of its founding with a 40th Anniver sary Community Meeting in September 2019. One year earlier the European Patent Office celebrated a number of big patent information anniversaries in 2018. This grand conjunction of events provided reasons for me to unearth what turned out to be a rich history of public information about conferred in tellectual property rights. The publication obligation has intensified from the beginning, synergistically, symbiotically and inextricably with the evolution of intellectual property systems. This presentation is a personally researched view of the history of patent information combined with some own experiences of working in an intergovernmental IP office and as a WPI editorial board member for over 20 years. The world has changed a little since 2019, you may have noticed. So I´ll include some subjective observations on the patent information responses of IP offices regarding the COVID pandemic and climate change, and speculate (but not too much) on the future of patent information at IP offices.

BIOGRAPHY In March 2021, I set up an independent consultancy – Stanfield Clarke Associates - operating in the intellec tual property space, after 30 years at the European Patent Office, EPO. I am interested in the application of patent analytics to landscaping studies of future and emerging technologies, the evolution of the commercial patent information sector, creating awareness of IP in the STEM community, and the development of IP teaching materials. I am an edi torial board member of World Patent Information. I have recently joined the Innovation and Intellectual Property Management lab at the Institute for Manu facturing at the University of Cambridge. I am guest lecturer at Kingston University and Visiting Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. I have chartered member ships of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Institute of Physics and the Science Council (UK). I have a BSc in physical chemistry and a PhD in Neutron Science both from the University of Exeter.

10