Considering that World Intellectual Property Day followed an Easter Bank Holiday Monday with the best April weather in living memory, that it fell 3 days before a Royal Wedding and that the Intellectual Property Office kept a very low profile, it is remarkable that anybody in the United Kingdom paid any attention to that day at all. In Yorkshire, at least, the day was a resounding success.
Leeds Central Library, one of the UK’s Patent Information Centres, 
held an exhibition and seminar with Dr Peter Groves as the guest speaker. Peter has just published an indispensable “Dictionary of Intellectual Property Law” which his publishers made available at a special rate to celebrate the day. The event was attended by local inventors, journalists, product development consultants, lawyers and others. ”An extremely valuable event” was the verdict of the editor of “Science People and Politics”.
In the afternoon Peter and I moved on to Gumption Centres in Bradford where we had an even more enthusiastic audience. Attending the event were artists, entrepreneurs, graphic designers, management consultants, software developers and publishers some of whom had travelled considerable distances. This time we were joined by trade mark agent Philip Cooper of VeryMark who gave us a very thorough introduction to brand and design law. There then followed a lively Q & A session over such topics as diverse as software patents and rights in performances. Altogether, a very good day out.
We are already planning for next year which should avoid the competing attractions of this year. The Bradford and Leeds events will be bigger and better, of course, but we also hope to hold events in other big cities such as Hull, Sheffield and York as well as many of the smaller communities across our county.
