ARTICLE
INNOVATION
Dusting off innovation Inspiring futures – can we move beyond the steam train? By Alasdair Poore (Fellow)1
T
he UK has been a centre of innovation for years. The first steam train was built here, and one can view it in the Science Museum. More on this later – but for now: is technology just for male nerds – or can technical education be made exciting for everyone? And can this promote diversity across all fields of technology and indirectly within the patent profession. Before Andrea Brewster so successfully established IP Inclusive, as Vice President of CIPA I had tried to understand why the patent profession was so reluctant to embrace diversity. At the time, one of the outstanding statistics was the division of male and female patent attorneys across the different disciplines – more or less 50/50 across life sciences but women represented only 10% or so in other disciplines2. These turn out to mirror the divisions across university education – so an answer to improving diversity in the professions lay in the larger question of diversity in higher (and secondary) education. At the other end of the education spectrum, I saw young children in the Science Museum3 racing around noisily and to all appearances, enjoying every moment of their exposure to technology – and the Science Museum has more school visitors than any other museum in the country. So why does this apparently fall away? When this article was originally conceived, it was intended to encourage members of the IP profession to reflect on the progress of technology over the years, and particularly the extraordinary rapid progress of technology – in
Puffing Billy — the oldest surviving steam railway locomotive (circa 1814).
engineering and especially in medicine – in a relative short period of time; and the role that IP professionals have played and continue to play in the promotion of innovation. Some examples of this are the progress from steam engine to space travel, autonomous vehicles (including in the artistic opportunities presented by such technology), or through the medical field from collecting and distilling urine, to “iron lungs” for victims of the polio virus, and the OncoMouse. And by providing some tasters of the current displays, far from my youthful recollection of dusty exhibits in glass
cabinets, to encourage patent attorneys to visit the museums unconstrained by childhood (whether their own or that of their offspring). And by doing so to spread the word about communicating the excitement of science and technology to a wider audience and to raise the appreciation of STEM to a more diverse community. Since then, Covid has taken over and visiting in person just does not work. With Covid, innovation and promoting engagement with innovation has never been more important for the UK. Innovation has been the buzzword of current politics for a considerable time. Covid-19 will cause a major4 hit to the world economy. Two of the self-identified leaders in innovation, the USA and UK have been hit by Covid much more seriously than many other countries, despite their levels of sophistication in innovation, and, at least in the UK being “led by the science”. That comes on top of Brexit – as to which we currently still do not know the road map, still less the outcome. But objective forecasters predicted Brexit will, unless there is some major intervention, also lead to a significant hit to the economy. And we are told a hit to the economy is also a hit to social wellbeing. Of course innovation will arrive from many directions, and one has already seen significant innovation in addressing issues in relation to Covid, some serious, such as potential vaccines, fast-tracked drug trials, test-and-tracking apps as well as financial innovations. These include also some not so serious innovations – you can take your pick5. The
24 CIPA JOURNAL JUNE 2020
www.cipa.org.uk
