On the 14th the IPPR Digital Society and Media team will be publishing a collection of papers as part of their project on intellectual property (IP) and the public sphere. I contributed one of these papers entitled The Value of the Public Domain and will be speaking at the publication event on the 14th of July (details below).

Innovation and Intellectual Property: Meeting the demands of the UK’s innovating industries

  • Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, 1 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5DB
  • Friday July 14th, 10:00 – 12:00

Speakers include:

  • Lord Sainsbury, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Science and Innovation
  • Chris Parker, Director of Legal and Corporate Affairs, Microsoft
  • Rufus Pollock, Cambridge University and Open Knowledge Foundation

The UK has one of the strongest performing knowledge bases in the world: we rank first out of the G8 countries for research productivity, produce nine per cent of the world’s PhDs and achieve 12 per cent of the world’s citations. However, levels of research and development remain low and we are consistently out-performed by key competitors such as Germany, Japan and the US.

The Government’s 10-year framework for investment in science and innovation set out an aim to increase R&D intensity from the current level of 1.9 per cent to 2.5 per cent by 2014.† It is the intention that 1.7 per cent of this should come from business.

A key component of this is the intellectual property regime and in particular, patents and copyright.† As new, collaborative models of innovation emerge it is essential that the regime itself is flexible enough to encourage new practices and to enable the UK’s scientific and innovating industries to flourish.†
This seminar will consider models of innovation ranging from large corporate practices to those of SMEs, and how the UK’s intellectual property regime can be best placed to ensure consistently high levels of innovation both now and in the future.

The event is invite only and places are limited. To reserve a place, please email Kay Withers (k.withers@ippr.org)

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Rufus Pollock is Founder and President of Open Knowledge.