Community design regulation (CDR) dictates that “A community design shall not subsist in features of appearance of a product which are solely dictated by its technical function” (Article 8(1) CDR). The rationale behind this, as indicated by the EU Design Directive, is to prevent technological innovation being hampered by design protection – such innovation should instead be protected by patents, which of course enjoy a shorter term, and are required to undergo substantive examination before grant.

It goes further to say that a design shall not subsist in features whose “exact form and dimensions” are required for the product “to be mechanically connected to or placed in, around or against another product so that either product may perform its function” (Article 8(2) CDR). This allows for free competition to provide and purchase products which fit to other products.

However, the situation becomes a little more complex when considering modular products, which can be assembled in a variety of manners. An important aspect of the design of such products naturally relates to how they can be fitted together. The Regulations therefore include an exemption that a design shall “subsist in a design serving the purpose of allowing the multiple assembly or connection of mutually interchangeable products within a modular system” (Article 8(3) CDR), a caveat which has gained the moniker ‘the LEGO Exemption’.

However, a product can fall under the remit of several of these paragraphs, and it may not always be clear just what can be registered. A recent judgement by the EUIPO’s Board of Appeal (following a judgement by the General Court) has considered the relationship between the technical function of a design and its modular nature – fittingly – in relation to LEGO bricks.

A design relating to a LEGO building block was previously declared invalid by the EUIPO Board of Appeal as its features were considered to be “solely dictated by their technical function”. The General Court since annulled this decision, stating that the Board of Appeal must consider the exemption for modular products (Article 8(3) CDR).

Upon reconsidering the case, the Board again decided that the design did indeed fall within the scope of both Article 8(1) CDR and Article 8(2) CDR, as its features are “solely dictated by its technical function” and having exact “form and dimensions … to be mechanically connected to or placed in, around or against another product so that either product may perform its function”. However, this time it was not the end of the matter.

The Board was then compelled to determine whether the design fulfilled the exemption of Article 8(3) CDR relating to modular systems. Citing that the bricks “can be assembled with, and disassembled from, other bricks of the set in different ways to build numerous varying creations”, it was decided that this exemption was indeed fulfilled, and therefore the design registration was deemed to be valid.

This decision is perhaps unsurprising, the Board themselves even stating that “LEGO bricks are probably the best-known example of such a modular system”. It therefore seems likely that LEGO systems will continue to act as a guiding example of when this exemption may be applied, and it will be interesting to see what other modular systems will also be considered to fall within this ‘LEGO exemption’. From a broader perspective – this decision also seems in line with the intended purpose of Article 8(3) CDR – as, indeed, it seems only just that designers of clever and complex interconnecting systems be fairly rewarded.

(C) Naomi Korn Associates & Mathys & Squire 2022. Some Rights Reserved. These case studies are licensed for reuse under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike Licence.

The following case study has been taken from the “Implications of Covid-19 on SMEs – reassessing the role of IP in multiple sectors and industries” report written by Naomi Korn Associates and Mathys & Squire Consulting, November 2021. This case study reviews the impact on SMEs (small, medium enterprises) of the COVID-19 pandemic since its appearance in early 2020 through the first quarter of 2021. It focuses on the industries most affected by the crisis and whether intellectual property (IP) and IP management may have helped mitigate its impact through adaptation and change.

Sector overview

While many industries and sectors have seen consumer demand plummet and have been faced with furloughing and layoffs, the wider healthcare and medical sectors have faced extremely high demand for services. Requirements for social distancing and minimising contact have seen the rise of new innovations surrounding robotics and telehealth solutions. Transformative developments using blockchain technology, allowing for exchange of information across products, services and medical practitioners have also experienced an increase in innovation. This is evident thanks to the announcement of Healthcare Innovator Philips that it is investing in a pivot towards telehealth. In the post-COVID-19 world, a permissioned and private blockchain will have a pivotal role in the digitisation of the healthcare industry and creation of new digital health solutions.

Analysis

While telehealth technologies were already present, it has been estimated that the level of telehealth visits has increased by 50-175 times the pre-COVID-19 levels with many patients now viewing the technology favourably. Many institutions have retrained their staff to provide innovative telehealth services, including virtual patient waiting rooms, robotics, connections to peripheral devices for remote diagnostics, cloud based clinical trials and electronic prescriptions services. This represents a change in the business model used in the sector, with up to 76% of surveyed patients indicating that they would use telehealth technology moving forward.  For example, the Singapore-based startup Homage, matches families and caregivers, providing home visits, telehealth consultations and medications delivery, through an integrated platform accessible by patients, medical staff, and other care providers, and keeping medical information, and prescriptions all in one healthcare management tool. The US company Radiologex offers a blockchain-based healthcare ecosystem, called R-DEE – a dedicated industry product for global healthcare that enables easy and secure communication and collaboration for all users.

The present pandemic has catalysed interest in contact-free continuous monitoring (CFCM) devices and approaches, such as the virus screening platform Clearstep, which allows patients a user-friendly way to check their symptoms, exposure and risk levels, and receive tailored advice and routes for potential care.  Such approaches allow for a limitation of physical contact, reduction in in-person contact and the need for medical staff to gown up. It is estimated that 5% of COVID-19 patients may require ICU treatment, and with an ever-increasing infection rate, and coping with a reduced workforce, telehealth technologies offer medical staff a route to treat those infected, while reducing the chance of further transmission or quarantine requirements. The Israeli company Earlysense has developed CFCM technology for continuous patient monitoring, including heart rate, respiratory rate and motion monitoring, as well as dashboards for overview of activity per patient or even per facility. We note that in February 2021 this technology was acquired by US-based technology company Hillrom, with the company licensing the technology back to EarlySense who will continue to make new developments, including next-generation AI based sensing technologies for remote patient care.

Tele-ICU technology has enabled remote consultations, thereby taking off some of the pressures associated with limited staff and PPE shortages. Research has shown that such systems may result in a reduction in mortality rates by 15%-60% and a significant reduction in the length of hospital stays[1]. This advantage continues beyond this point with telehealth allowing continued monitoring of recovered COVID-19 patients once they have left medical facilities. This seismic impact of COVID-19 on the healthcare sector has resulted in a telemedicine market worth more than $49.9 billion, expected to increase by a CAGR of 40.4%, reaching a value of $194 billion in 2023. The United States represents the largest market, followed by Asia Pacific and Europe.

In this sector, numerous companies, medical facilities, and inventors have developed novel solutions. Prior to the pandemic, a US-based company had developed a cloud-based, HIPAA-compliant platform called Vidyo to conduct patient consultations and to communicate between physicians and hospitals. However, with the arrival of COVID-19 several healthcare providers in the US found that with additional hardware, this already approved system could be easily rolled out across the hospital. French company Tessan has developed a connected telemedicine cabin, which has been already installed in several pharmacies in France. These cabins are fitted with several medical devices and remotely connected to doctors, who can act based on the output when required, without the need for the patient to enter the hospital. The pandemic has also sparked the development of Iceland’s SidekickHealth, a gamified digital therapeutics platform combining clinical validation with gamification, behavioural economics, and AI to deliver a personalised patient experience. Companies have also stepped up to offer royalty free licensing of patented technologies to healthcare providers through the Open Covid Pledge to aid in the fight against COVID -19. This includes patents relating to a variety of technologies including network-based healthcare information systems from AT&T, Wi-Fi enabled open-clinics from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, disease diagnostics technologies from Fujitsu, and protein detection technologies from Sandia.

A recent lawsuit filed by Teladoc Health against American Well over infringement of robotics and real time connection patents is a testament to the increase in patent litigation amongst telehealth companies and providers. It also highlights the importance of securing suitable protection of intellectual property assets from the beginning, especially when regulations are being relaxed to ease provision of care for patients.

The technical innovations used to provide telehealth services are rich in data, with the AI models they contain being trained on data generated by sensors, apps, and patient interactions. One of the main points of concern in the use of these technologies relates to data protection and its secure storage, as well as many innovations being developed in their own right just to deal with these issues. Telehealth solutions and the related data provide a wide range of intellectual property assets, which should be suitably protected.

A well-known telehealth platform may be recognised through a known trade mark or logo, while the software behind the platform may be copyright or in some cases patent protected. Algorithms behind a certain telehealth software are likely to be protected as trade secrets, whilst user interfaces or layouts may be protected by design rights. In all cases, such telehealth platforms represent a mix of intangible assets, which must be carefully managed by any business operating in this sector. Furthermore, the move towards telehealth and blockchain enabled systems, represents the formation of new business models, leaving existing players needing to strategically pivot their strategies to focus on more innovative opportunities[2]. 

[1] Naik, Gupta, Singh, Soni, & Puri, 2020, pp. Real-Time Smart Patient Monitoring and Assessment Amid COVID-19 Pandemic – an Alternative Approach to Remote Monitoring

[2] Morgan, Anokhin, Ofstein, & Friske, 2020, p. SME response to major exogenous shocks: The bright and dark sides of business model pivoting

Following the launch of a consultation on intellectual property (IP) and artificial intelligence (AI) towards the end of last year, the UK Government have now released their formal response summarising the outcome.

The consultation was designed to seek opinions on the issues surrounding IP – in particular copyright and patents – and AI as a tool for innovation and creation. 

Three key areas were looked at:

1. Copyright protection for computer-generated works without a human author. These are currently protected in the UK for 50 years, but the consultation looked at whether they should they be protected at all, and if so, how.
2. Licensing or exceptions to copyright for text and data mining, which is often significant in AI use and development.
3. Whether and how AI-devised inventions should be protected by patents.

Several options were presented for each area and respondents were asked to indicate which of three options they would prefer, where “option 0” for all three areas represented “no legal change”.

Based on the results of the consultation, the UK Government are not planning any changes to UK patent law or copyright laws relating to computer-generated works, though notes that they will keep these areas of law under review.

The UK Government is, however, planning to introduce a new copyright and database exception which allows text and data mining for any purpose. Rights holders will still have safeguards to protect their content so they can choose the platform where they make their works available, and charge for access.

We will continue to monitor for updates and will of course provide more information relating to any changes as we become aware of it.

Data provided by Mathys & Squire has featured in articles by City A.M.  and The Patent Lawyer providing an update on the launch of the Unified Patent Court.

An extended version of the release is available below.

Europe’s new one-stop shop for IP enforcement – the Unified Patent Court – took a major step forward on Friday 8 July 2022, as 90 new judges began to be informed that their applications to sit on the court have been successful. Mathys & Squire, the leading intellectual property law firm, says that the Unified Patent Court is no longer a distant prospect but an imminent reality for businesses and inventors in the UK and across Europe.

The Administrative Committee of the Unified Patent Court received over 1,000 applications from judges across Europe. Of these, 90 have been selected to serve on the court.

The new court will serve as a single point of contact for litigation of IP infringement within participating countries – which could potentially save businesses thousands in legal costs.

After many years of delay, the Unified Patent Court is finally taking shape. First agreed in 2013 – but subject to numerous delays in domestic ratification – the court will soon clear one of its last major hurdles on the road to full implementation.

Andreas Wietzke, Partner at Mathys & Squire says: “The letters being sent out from now onwards will give the Unified Patent Court what a court needs most – judges. The UPC has been on the horizon for decades but now finally is taking shape.”

“UK & European businesses which have long been looking forward to a simplified and cost-efficient patent litigation system can now be increasingly confident that this is just around the corner.”

“Businesses now need to prepare for the UPC to become a reality and work out their strategy for maximising their IP protection across Europe.”

Mathys & Squire is delighted to be ranked in the latest edition of the IAM Patent 1000: The World’s Leading Patent Professionals 2022 directory – the ‘go-to’ guide identifying ‘top patent professionals in key jurisdictions around the globe’. The guide is compiled based on feedback following an extensive research process involving around 1,800 interviews over five months.

Aside from our firm ranking, ten of our Mathys & Squire attorneys have been recognised as Recommended Individuals: Partners Paul Cozens, Martin MacLean, Alan MacDougall, Jane Clark, Chris Hamer, Andrew White, Dani Kramer, Anna Gregson, Craig Titmus, as well as James Pitchford.

Our attorneys have been praised as a “forward-thinking and technically skilled team with a dedication to premium client service”. We are pleased that “Mathys & Squire has maintained its position as a top choice for patent prosecution across the United Kingdom and Europe.”

Data and commentary provided by Mathys & Squire has featured in an article by City A.M. and Tech Register highlighting a surge in patents for wireless communications technology.

An extended version of the press release is available below.

Patents for wireless communications technology filed by the Top 20 carmakers* have jumped to a record high of 991 in the past year**, finds new research by leading intellectual property (IP) law firm Mathys & Squire. The figure is up from 945 in the previous year and up three-fold from 323 patents five years ago.

Wireless communications technology is expected to be a key component of driverless cars – allowing autonomous vehicles to communicate with other vehicles and objects, therefore avoiding collisions with those objects.

Mathys & Squire says the automotive industry has begun to generate its own wireless communication patents in order to avoid possible clashes with the telecoms industry. The telecoms sector is seen as being more litigious than the automotive sector in the protection of its intellectual property.

By owning their own driverless car technology carmakers can avoid protracted legal battles with telecoms companies over the licensing of wireless technology owned by telecoms companies.

One example of where the sectors have already clashed is the high-profile dispute between Nokia and Daimler over wireless technology. Nokia had claimed that Daimler should pay licensing fees for its use of their navigation technology. Daimler had claimed that the supplier of the part which used the technology should pay the license fee, potentially decreasing the total level of fees paid to Nokia. The case was settled with Daimler paying Nokia an undisclosed amount.

Andrew White, Partner at Mathys & Squire explains that the automotive industry is used to a culture where it can fit parts from suppliers into its vehicles without worrying about being sued by other automakers. The sudden dependence of automakers on wireless technology in their autonomous vehicles, that might be owned by a telecoms companies, moves them into a much more unfamiliar legal landscape.

Andrew White says: “The automotive industry knows access to wireless communications technology is vital to its future. They fear that telecoms companies might frustrate their access to this technology.”

“They’ve decided the best way to have access to this technology is to develop and own their own IP in this area – hence the increase in these patents filed by carmakers.”

“Owning wireless communications patents is a win-win for the automotive industry. It gives them valuable IP in a growing field and reduces the risk of legal battles with telecoms firms.”

Andrew White adds that carmakers are increasingly subscribing to driverless vehicle patent pools to avoid IP conflicts. Patent pools enable companies to group together to allow access to a given list of patents which the members have agreed to share.

Andrew concludes: “The next-best option to owning your own IP is to belong to a patent pool, which gives relatively risk-free access to a range of patented technologies in a given field.”

*Top 20 carmakers by volume, worldwide

**Year ending December 31

(C) Naomi Korn Associates & Mathys & Squire 2022. Some Rights Reserved. These case studies are licensed for reuse under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike Licence.

The following case study has been taken from the “Implications of Covid-19 on SMEs – reassessing the role of IP in multiple sectors and industries” report written by Naomi Korn Associates and Mathys & Squire Consulting, November 2021. This case study reviews the impact on SMEs (small, medium enterprises) of the COVID-19 pandemic since its appearance in early 2020 through the first quarter of 2021. It focuses on the industries most affected by the crisis and whether intellectual property (IP) and IP management may have helped mitigate its impact through adaptation and change.

Sector overview

The impact of COVID-19 on the cultural heritage sector will most likely permanently affect it, changing cultural practice and engagement as we know it.

Cultural organisations and the arts in general faced unprecedented challenges, forcing sudden and widespread closures, with almost 80% of UK heritage organisations, for example, experiencing a sharp decrease in visitor numbers[1] and many fearing permanent closure due to the loss of fragile income streams. Creative industries in the UK alone are estimating a turnover loss of £74 billion in 2020, with job losses of over 100,000 as well as almost 300,000 job losses amongst self-employed workers from supporting industries. Thus, the impact of COVID-19 on the cultural sector will bring about long-lasting changes in cultural practice and engagement as we know it.

Analysis

During the coronavirus pandemic, many cultural institutions and museums made an increased amount of cultural content freely available[2]. Exemplifying an increased awareness of the benefits of digitisation, including the building of a digital strategy into business models, by taking advantage of new or existing digital assets, has played and will play an important role in the survival of cultural heritage institutions. While digitisation efforts by small and large heritage organisations may differ widely due to funding, large organisations which already had a digital footprint and plan in place before the pandemic were better placed to modify their operations and to push more of their activities and their collections online. Unfortunately, many smaller and rural heritage organisations have neither the facilities, nor skills or finances to put them in place[3]. Ultimately, digitisation and the pro-active creation of new digital content may be the route for survival for impacted cultural heritage organisations. Digital assets will, broadly speaking, be protected by copyright, and in specific cases these organisations may have opportunities for patent or trade secret protection and the incorporation of VR and AI into experiences. As an example, ‘Inside Bruegel’ is an online experience developed by the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna (KHM) to share digital photography and the findings of scholars. Another example is the 360-degree virtual tour of the Bode Museum, Berlin.

Following coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions, museums used digitised assets to pivot creative digital programming including online exhibitions, virtual tours, livestreams, and even VR games, to reach their audience remotely. As a result, their reach in terms of diversity and inclusion was in many cases increased despite social distancing. Many museums have switched to producing video content. The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam is just one example of a museum that offered live tours with the museum director or curators, or even ‘silent tours’ (the Metropolitan Museum in New York City) through the collection galleries of their museums.  Some of the most creative museums combined dance or music in a gallery setting, demanding the creation and strategic management of new forms of IP, as well as exploration of licensing opportunities for copyright protected content. Likewise, musicians and performing arts organisation have seized upon the online video format to remain relevant and reach both their traditional audiences and new ones globally.

In addition, arts organisations and museums have had to rethink revenue models like memberships and subscriptions, considering how membership can relate to an organisation’s digital programming, making it relevant locally and globally.

Interestingly, the closure of heritage and performing arts venues along with the increasing demand for digital content, benefited some areas of the broader entertainment industry.  For example, Netflix gained as many as 16 million new subscribers during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Large film and TV businesses with their own distribution channels and those with richer catalogues of digitally distributable IP faced less severe economic loss, particularly valuable at a time when new production wasn’t possible.  Smaller, independent production companies suffered because they typically had fewer accumulated IP assets to fall back on. Given the disproportionate importance of microbusinesses to the creative industries (94.7% of the sector in 2018), a significant loss of these businesses would be extremely damaging to the sector.

Fortunately, many cultural heritage organisations throughout the UK have received grant aid through the £50m National Lottery Heritage Emergency Fund, and with this critical help have sought to pivot their activities towards producing digital content, benefiting from their established brand presence and essentially reminding the public that they are open for business albeit in a new format.  Without such a revised approach and without the necessary financing, many heritage organisations, closed for months, will struggle financially throughout and after the pandemic.

It is also important to remember that the cultural heritage sector naturally attracts innovators, who have developed new innovative technologies and have protected those intellectual assets accordingly. Companies that succeeded in the area include Milan-based Junior, Dexibit, Clio Muse Tours in Greece, and Cuseum.com in the U.S., the latter holding patents for smartphone memberships management and location-based media delivery systems facilitating a more interactive museum experience. By partnering with companies like these and with other cultural institutions that have high-quality image, video, and other content collections, the creation of new programming and opportunities can be achieved relatively quickly. 

A crucial factor discovered by cultural heritage institutions too often and too late is a lack of orderly recording of collaboration agreements, contracts and content licensing for past productions, preventing their reuse or reinvention in a timely manner.  While the creation of copyright-protected content and the use of digital content by culture and arts organisations is likely to be the best route to their continued survival and a source of potential revenue, it is important to remember that many heritage organisations such as museums and galleries have very well-established brands with significant goodwill attached to the brand internationally, including the British Museum, the Rijksmuseum and MoMA. For such organisations, the arrival of the pandemic required rethinking and pivoting of their brand strategy and an appraisal of their use of brand assets, including trade marks, designs, domains and associated reputation. For example, Guinness used its connection with Irish culture and heritage to encourage people to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in their own way while obeying national pandemic regulations. Similarly, many museums produced free online content such as lectures and workshops aimed at global community service, while maintaining and strengthening brand recognition and loyalty: the Frick Collection in New York City began hosting Cocktails with a Curator, inviting the public to a virtual happy hour once a week as a Frick curator offered insights on a work of art. Brand heritage foundations and exhibition spaces have been a highly effective way to use IP for communicating a company’s legacy connection with the arts and social causes.  Exhibiting their collections has supported visibility and reputation by emphasising history and dedication. Examples include Armani Silos, as well as the Burberry Foundation, with its emphasis on brand and heritage and partnerships with The Royal College of Art, Oxfam, and others.

The global licensing industry was worth US$292.8 billion in 2019, and although dominated by character and entertainment licensing, it was encouraging to see that the fastest growing licensing sectors last year were Art (+10%) and Non-Profit (+18%). The licensing industry started 2020 with a strong, profitable business model, and it is confident that it will weather the current storm. Brand licensing has seen positive growth and looks set to become more desirable as licensors look for ‘evergreen’, trusted brands which consumers want to support. For SMEs, branding licensing revenue can be a valuable income stream at a time when every penny counts. For example, the “I love NY” slogan and logo was developed to promote tourism in New York State. Created by graphic artist Milton Glaser, it was first used in 1977. It is owned by New York State Department of Economic Developmentand generates about $30 million annually. Even when physical sites are closed, the I Love NY registered trade mark in association with products, provides valuable income during the COVID-19 crisis.

Realisation that the proper management of IP assets will prove to be a clear advantage for organisational survival during and after COVID-19 shut-downs will be an advantage, as will an entrepreneurial mindset and a willingness to fund and staff the exploitation of existing content. 

[1] ONS (2020): In the last two weeks how has Covid-19 affected your businesses footfall compared to normal expectations for this time of year, ONS

[2] (European Parliament, 2020)

[3] Europa Nostra (2020): Covid-19 & Beyond: Challenges and opportunities for cultural heritage, Europa Nostra

As part of an overall strategy to strengthen the UK’s position as a “global science and tech superpower”, the UK government have recently released a policy paper focusing on their digital strategy. The aim is to develop the UK as the best place in the world to start and grow a technology business. Already, the UK has seen exciting growth in digital businesses, and the paper cites that a new technology business was launched in the UK every half an hour throughout 2020.

Recognising that “ideas and intellectual property are at the heart of innovation which feeds digital businesses”, the strategy incorporates a strong focus on intellectual property. Currently, the UK ranks fourth on the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s Global Innovation Index, which measures a country’s innovative capacity and output. The government’s aim is to develop this further, and the report outlines the following ways in which they plan to encourage innovation:

Supporting universities to develop new ideas and technologies

The government have announced an increase in funding for UK Research and Innovation, which includes Innovate UK. In particular, they wish to invest in university spinoffs, citing that the Higher Education Innovation Funding programme generates £8.30 for every £1 of funding, plus a further £1.80 through investment in spinoffs. There will be a particular focus on AI and quantum technologies, as well as advanced semiconductor research, which form part of the seven technology families identified as of particular interest in the Innovation Strategy published last year.  

Incentivising businesses to innovate

There are currently several incentive schemes in place to encourage innovation, including R&D tax relief and a reduced rate of corporation tax paid on income to profits earned from patented inventions via the Patent Box scheme. The government plan to review these further and have already announced that they will expand R&D tax reliefs to cover cloud computing and data acquisition.

The government also encourage innovation through the Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Network, and plan to ensure there is adequate provision of, and access to, large-scale, high-performance computing, for example Hartree Centre in Warrington. The government also want to focus on the innovative nature of digital media and highlight the issue of ensuring that artists are fairly remunerated from music streaming, an issue being explored by the UK Intellectual Property Office alongside digital streaming platforms and the music industry.

Innovation in the NHS

The policy paper recognises that, as the largest integrated health system in the world, the NHS hold enormous potential to develop digital and data-driven technologies to improve treatments, models of care, and how the health and care system functions. To ensure the security of patient data, Secure Data Environments, including Trusted Research Environments, will be used to provide researchers and analysts with secure access to appropriate levels of data. In particular, the NHS ‘AI Lab’ supports the safe, ethical and effective adoption of AI in health and care and has committed over £100 million to accelerate testing and evaluation of over 80 AI technologies. An additional £200 million funding has been announced between NHS England, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for the NHS data infrastructure to support data-driven research and innovation.

Innovate UK has now opened a DASA competition to support proposals which use synthetic biology to overcome challenges in the defence and security sectors. The total funding available for the whole Phase 1 of the competition is £1.5 million (ex VAT), split into Phase 1a and a costed optional Phase 1b.

Phase 1a seeks technologies starting at a low technology readiness level (TRL, TRL 1-2) and rising to a higher TRL (minimum TRL 3) by the end of Phase 1a over a period of 12 months. There is a total maximum of £750,000 of funding available for Phase 1a, with Innovate UK looking to fund around 7-8 proposals at approximately £100,000.

Phase 1b also has a maximum of £750,000 available. Phase 1b projects are intended to run for a maximum of 12 months and are intended to take the technology to TRL4. A Phase 2 competition is planned, but no timings or details of maximum funding have yet been released.

In 2016, Innovate UK ran its first competition looking for inventions that apply synthetic biology developments to improve the defence sector. Previous projects included increased energy for flexible body armours, tough recombinant spider silk/graphene multifunctional nanofibers for wearable personal protection and lignin-based metallic nanoparticles as anti-corrosion agents.

In the new competition, proposals addressing one or more of the following challenges are invited:

• exploiting engineering biology for a step change in power and energy technologies
• materials for defence
• sensing and sensor technologies

Innovate UK are looking for proposals that involve cutting edge, multidisciplinary research with the synthetic biology as a core component. Proposals should seek to apply these tools and techniques to provide solutions reflecting a defence relevant need and that will benefit end users working in UK Defence and Security.

Applications are open now until 26 August 2022. For more information, visit the KTN website here.

According to the United Nations’ Global e-waste monitor, e-waste is the world’s fastest-growing domestic waste stream. The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Forum recently estimated the combined mass of discarded electrical and electronic equipment in 2021 alone to be more than 57 million tonnes, and it is predicted that by 2030 global e-waste will reach 74 million tonnes annually.

The Royal Society of Chemistry is running a campaign to draw attention to the unsustainability of continuing to mine all the precious elements needed to produce consumer electronic equipment.  Researchers say that current reserves of some key elements are running out, and that there is a risk of exhausting the supplies of these elements. In particular, experts warn that supplies of the following elements could run out in the next century:

• Gallium: Used in medical thermometers, LEDs, solar panels, telescopes and has possible anti-cancer properties;
• Arsenic: Used in fireworks, as a wood preserver;
• Silver: Used in mirrors, reactive lenses that darken in sunlight, antibacterial clothing and gloves for use with touch-screens;
• Indium: Used in transistors, microchips, fire sprinkler systems, as a coating for ball-bearings in Formula One cars and solar panels;
• Yttrium: Used in white LED lights, camera lenses and can be used to treat some cancers;
• Tantalum: Used in surgical implants, electrodes for neon lights, turbine blades, rocket nozzles and nose caps for supersonic aircraft, hearing aids and pacemakers.

As a result, there is an increasing focus on improving recycling processes to mine e-waste. The potential value of the rare elements contained e-waste is vast. According to a 2019 report by the World Economic Forum, the world’s e-waste has a material value of $62.5 billion (£46 billion) – more than the GDP of most countries. The director of UN’s Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) programme points out that a tonne of discarded mobile phones is richer in gold than a tonne of gold ore. 

Increased innovation in the area of e-waste mining and recycling has driven a corresponding increase in patenting activity. A patent landscaping report on e-waste recycling technologies, published by the World Intellectual Property Organisation, found that there has been a large increase in patent activity relating to the recovery of rare earth metals as well as extraction or recovery of noble metals from e-waste streams. Rare earth metal recovery is not only a fast growing area of patenting activity, but it is also the most widely protected aspect of this technology in terms of the geographic extent of protection, suggesting that this field is a major emerging topic of interest to patent applicants.

The patent landscaping report also found that the majority of patenting activity in e-waste originates in Asia – primarily in Japan and China – followed by activity originating in Europe and the United States.  The patent applicants in this area of technology were found to be relatively ‘top heavy”’, in that a large proportion of the total number of patents in this area are owned by relatively few large entities.  In fact, more than one quarter of the patent families in the collection derive from just 21 patent applicants, all of whom have 40 or more e-waste patents in their portfolio.

More generally, with initiatives such as the EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan, adopted in March 2020, it seems likely that patenting activity in e-waste mining and recycling technologies will continue to grow in the years to come.