"No Invention left behind" - WIPO's Inventor Assistance Programme gathers Pace
Standard YouTube Licence Jane Lambert Hardly a week goes by without a request for help from an inventor, entrepreneur or other innovator in Africa, Asia or Latin America as well as my own or some other advanced country. Obtaining legal protection for a brand, design, technology or work of art or literature is difficult enough even in the UK. In a less developed country it is so much harder. Usually, all I can do when I get such a request is to direct the enquirer to his or her national intellectual property office, a local patent or trade mark attorney or lawyer or, occasionally, an inventor's club. The reason why those enquirers seek my help is that legal protection for a product or service is a prerequisite for market success. Without it countless ideas that could improve the human condition lie unused. That is obviously bad for the creator or innovator whose life could have been transformed had he or she taken the product or service to market but ...