Two IPs In A Pod
Brilliant inventions, fresh product designs, iconic brand names and artistic creativity are not only the building blocks of successful business - they deliver a better world for us all. But these valuable forms of intellectual property must be protected in order to flourish. We are the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys - the UK's largest intellectual property organisation. Our hosts Lee Davies and Gwilym Roberts chat with entrepreneurs, creatives, patent attorneys and the occasional judge about how patents, trade marks, designs and copyright can improve our lives and solve problems for humanity.
Two IPs In A Pod
CIPA at the Earthshot Prize Awards 2024
CIPA members have played a key role in the success of Prince William's increasingly influential Earthshot Prize, the multi-million pound annual environmental awards.
This year the awards were held in Cape Town and Deputy Chief Executive Neil Lampert was among the invited VIPs. Neil talks to Lee about his chats with past CIPA-nominated winners and finalists - and hopes that CIPA members can play an even more important role in supporting Earthshot finalists.
Read more about the 2024 winners and the awards ceremony on the Earthshot website.
Lee Davis and Gwilym Roberts are the two IPs in a pod and you are listening to a podcast on intellectual property brought to you by the Chartered.
Speaker 2:Institute of Patent Attorneys.
Speaker 4:Hello, Neil. I've not seen you for a little while. Mate, where have you been anywhere, exciting?
Speaker 5:Well, I've been out of the country for a week, lucky enough to be attending the Earthshot Prize week and award ceremony in Cape Town, south Africa.
Speaker 4:So just remind me, not that I've forgotten, obviously, because this is the day job, but just remind me what's Earthshot.
Speaker 5:Prince William launched the Earthshot Prize in 2020 to award five prizes of a million pounds each to the most impactful innovations in environmental climate change sustainability, and it's been growing year on year. The first year, I think, there were a few hundred nominations, and this year, many, many thousands of nominations, um, and the prize has grown into something of a kind of an environmental movement, I would say it's certainly big news, isn't it?
Speaker 4:and um so kudos to you. You recognize fairly early on that there was an opportunity for sepa to to become involved. I think, probably, our involvement has outgrown even your aspirations at that time. What do we do? How do we support it?
Speaker 5:So, with the help of Gerry Bridge Butler's team of patent attorneys Gerry Bridge Butler, baron, warren Redfern, patent attorney and chair of SEPA's Media and PR Committee he organises a team to run due diligence checks on the finalists, as provided by the Earthshot team, to check there's no IP issues before they award the prize. And from the second year of the prize, we also became an official nominator. And we were so successful that first year we had three finalists and one winner that the Earthshot team started referring to us as a super nominator. That's amazing, amazing, isn't it? And then we had another finalist the following year unfortunately none this year, but hey, that's the right role, isn't it?
Speaker 4:you're not always going to get people um through that process and presumably nominations are open again and um, and we're looking for future potential winners we are.
Speaker 5:We've only had a handful of nominations in so far, so I'm really hoping that um some of you know our members will have a real think about any clean tech, um green innovations and innovators they have within their client base and email. Uh, email me or a pinia, who's our comms officer. Um, just get in touch via email or however you you find most easiest, and just let us know um, or if you've got any questions, we're happy to to answer any questions you might have, because we we really would like to see um a decent number of nominations from SIPA for 2025 and the rewards for the nominees can be quite extensive, can't they so?
Speaker 4:um, and probably the best way to talk about that is to perhaps listen to some. And you you were lucky enough to catch up with some of our previous nominees. Where you're at there, who did you, who did you bump into first?
Speaker 5:um, I spoke to pierre pallier, um founder and and co-ceo of not plar. Notplar are innovators in seaweed and packaging technology and they replace single-use plastic with a seaweed-coated card that they create all manner of food packaging from. They won the million pounds in Build a Waste-Free World in 2022. And, as we'll hear, they are going from strength to strength and having some amazing success at the moment. So let's listen to my chat with Pierre. Pierre, I always seem to meet you at these Earthshot.
Speaker 6:Awards. It's great to see you again.
Speaker 5:It's quite tense to have fun. So since we last spoke, NotPla have had some amazing news with your new investment.
Speaker 6:Yeah, it's been really exciting because we've now closed a 20 million pound round and that's going to be incredibly helpful for growing NotPla, not just in our base in Europe, but also expanding to new geographies. We have a lot of interest from the US, so this is going to be helping us to get there, and that means that we have now a new group of investors backing us who are opening incredible doors, including Temasek Trust with C3H. So really exciting to have another Earthshot member who is deeply invested in Notpla and it's going to help us succeed.
Speaker 5:So I've got to ask you, how important do you think your patents are in attracting that investment or securing that investment?
Speaker 6:Well, when you're like a for-profit solution and there's a lot of tech and there's a lot of R&D, you need this kind of like protection from patents to be able to give the investors that like reassurance that all of those efforts are going to give you the return on investment. So patents are a very, very kind of like helpful way of giving that framework for innovation that rewards the inventors, and so that's why, from the very beginning, we were very keen to make sure that we were very well prepared on that front, to make sure that we were able to get those equity investors joining us and therefore fronting all of these efforts of R&D.
Speaker 5:And in terms of your technology and your products that you're putting into the market at the moment, are there any new products that we should?
Speaker 6:be aware of Always. There's always some new patents filing in the background, continuing to work with PortoClax and with the support from people who've been following us for a while, so they really understand as well what is kind of like leading edge in our space of seaweed packaging, how to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the competition and, importantly, just kind of like how we are starting to navigate new geographies and how we're going to kind of like strike partnerships, start to have the first kind of like licensing conversations. All of these things are kind of like revolving around like this important kind of like base, which is your IPPAP product. Thank you.
Speaker 5:And you were just talking to me earlier about the amazing pro bono work that Herbert Smith Freehills are doing with so many Earthshot finalists and winners. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and why you think there might be maybe an opening for Pat and Eternity to do something similar?
Speaker 6:Well, I think they're truly like the unsung heroes of this Earthshot Price support package.
Speaker 6:When you think about the Earthshot Price, you think about Prince William, you think about the million pound award for the five winners, but actually there is so much behind the scenes that creates so much value.
Speaker 6:One of the things that is not sexy to talk about, but that everyone needs, is legal advice and so much value.
Speaker 6:One of the things that is not sexy to talk about but that everyone needs is legal advice. And so HSF has kind of like showed up and basically is helping all of the kind of like finalists navigate whatever situation they're in. They're doing this pro bono. This is their way of kind of like helping those kind of like innovators reach their kind of like goals, and so having like been literally getting their help to find some kind of like creative solutions to multi-stakeholder kind of like contracts and getting their expertise has been transformational for Notpla personally, but I've heard it from all of the other Alshad finalists. So, yeah, here's the idea Like what if we had the same kind of thing on the patent side of things? Not everyone is going to have new technology, but for the many Earthshot finalists who are technology-based, what if there was those people that you can pick up the phone and have conversations, knowing that this is part of their wider efforts of supporting innovators.
Speaker 6:And I think that would be very powerful. It might not be the thing that is the sexiest making it on the front line of all the newspapers in the world, but this is what actually makes a difference in those companies.
Speaker 5:Thanks, I'll be taking that message back and seeing if we can make some Make some progress on that front. Thank, you. So we also have Tess Chia from the Tamasek Trust I hope I've pronounced that right and you are the new investor that Pierre was just telling us about. Can you tell us why you're excited about NotPla's offerings and why you're investing?
Speaker 1:We're super excited to back Pierre and his amazing team at NotPla's offerings and why you're investing. We're super excited to back Pierre and his amazing team at NotPla. So NotPla won their short prize back in 2022, and Temasek Trust is a founding partner of the prize. Their business is aligned with our impact areas. They're an innovative product, strong customer traction. We're confident that they'll just go from strength to strength and we're so proud to be part of their journey ah, so good to hear Pierre's story.
Speaker 4:There it's, um, it's one of continuing success, isn't it? And I know that, um, he's become a little bit of a media star in his own right, isn't it? Because everyone wants to listen to the Not For Our Story.
Speaker 5:He and his co-founder, rodrigo. They are I don't know if star's the right word, but I think they're inspirational figures in the world of food packaging and what they're doing is amazing. I was really interested to talk to Pierre there about his hopes that, with help from our members, we might be able to create some kind of offering in IP that Herbert Smith Freehill provide for the Earthshot Prize in terms of help with other areas of law. I spoke to a number of other finalists who thought that that would be probably transformational for many, many Earthshot finalists and their ability to scale. So we'll be reaching out to members and seeing what we can do on that front.
Speaker 4:Yes, and watch this space in terms of other opportunities that there might be to get involved in supporting Earthshot as it goes from strength to strength. Very much so. But it wasn't just Pierre and Nopla that you bumped into yesterday, was it? You came across another former nominee.
Speaker 5:I always seem to bump into Pierre and Natasha at these Earthshot Awards, which is funny in a way, because we've got we've had other finalists who I never seem to bump into in the way that I bump into Pierre and Natasha, but it's always great to see them and to hear what they've been up to in the intervening months and years. But Natasha Balding is CEO of Low Carbon Materials, who are who were sorry, a finalist in 2022. Are, uh, who were sorry, a finalist in 2022. I was so pleased natasha, I forgot they're a finalist and I for a second.
Speaker 4:there I introduced her as a winner, you'll hear, but uh, hey, you're speaking to someone who always stumbles over podcasts, so I think at the end of their podcasts are just natural speech, aren't they?
Speaker 5:and um yeah, and these things happen they've had many new partnerships and releasing new products um regularly, all patented, patent protected, and you'll hear Natasha talk about their licensing model, which is central to their success. Let's get Natasha on, shall we? So I'm here with Natasha Balding, chief Executive Officer of Low Carbon Materials, the SEPA nominated winner in 2020. Oh, I don't know. I see you as a winner, natasha. I'll keep it in. I mean congratulations on all your success since 2022. Can you update us as to what you've been up to?
Speaker 2:2022. Can you update us as to what you've been up to? Sure, thank you. We have been very busy since 2022, so one of our major accomplishments this in the last couple of years has been we're developing a product portfolio. So we entered the Urschop Prize with a solution to decarbonize concrete. Here today we have two products. We now have a new product to decarbonise asphalt, and we're working with some of the largest asphalt manufacturers in the world to help them to decarbonise their roads that we all rely so much on.
Speaker 5:And how are you going about that?
Speaker 2:So we create additives. So, if you can touch it, smell it, feel it. That's what we do, and we create additives that you incorporate into traditional concrete or asphalt at about 5% give or take to lock in and permanently store CO2 and then utilise that in roads and buildings, essentially demanding more from the built environment around us and they're all patent protected.
Speaker 5:All this is patent protected, obviously of course, of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a huge part of our strategy is to ensure that all of our intellectual property is is protected and you're still working with esme swindle at potter clarkson we are.
Speaker 2:We're working with a whole bunch of the potter, fox and team who are absolutely integral addition to the lcm team and how does that help build your portfolio? Build um investment interest multiple different ways, but primarily for us as a climate tech and deep tech company, it's ensuring that we can protect new innovations that are coming through, that we then commercialise and get out there into the market.
Speaker 5:And you're licensing a lot of your innovations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for LCM. That's the end goal. So we want to do what we're good at, which is innovating and developing that product portfolio for product 3, 4, 5 and then ensuring the wider market can then license that technology from us and create something valuable For us. Our core skill set is innovation.
Speaker 5:And when you're at these Earthshot events and you're involved in the Earthshot Prize, it's easy to get enthused and feel the energy in the room when people are talking about the importance of sustainability and working together and cooperating. What can you say to maybe SEPA members and patent attorneys? Why is it important they should really think about whether they've got any clients they could put forward for the Airshot Prize. What could it do for them?
Speaker 2:A huge amount, an absolute huge amount. I think the airshot prize is not just a prize. It's a platform for accelerating the best solutions from all over the world and we all benefit from it. We all benefit from the solutions that are the thousands of solutions, I should say, that are nominated the the finalists and then the winners. If they scale and they can achieve what they're set out to achieve, that's going to benefit every single person around the world. So we all have a responsibility to look around us is there any up-and-coming startups or SMEs that we think are doing incredible things in the world and then nominate those for the Ayr prize fabulous thanks, natasha.
Speaker 4:Thank you oh, that's another great story, isn't it? And I know, despite the fact that, um, that natasha didn't win, there's there's been huge benefit for her and the company for having been nominated in the first place and, obviously, for being shortlisted as a finalist. I know that that's been a big part of their story in terms of their ongoing success.
Speaker 5:Yeah, pierre and Natasha and all the finalists will say the same thing, and that is it's not necessarily the million pounds. That is transformational for them as a startup or an SME is access to the Earthshots fellowship program and this extended family, or certainly extended bank of resources that they can dip into, whether that be contract assistance or IP assistance or access to investors. It's an enormous roster of help that Prince William and the Earthshot Prize team have put in place, and it's that that I hope we might be able to add patent attorneys to in time.
Speaker 4:So there's a real community now, isn't there around Earthshot? I think that's probably part of its story in terms of the transformation that it's making. So any closing thoughts on your time out there and what you learned, perhaps it's just a true inspiration.
Speaker 5:Every time you attend an earthshot event. It's very infectious and, although I'm I'm constantly aware of the need um to behave, you know, in a sustainable way, um, and we'll all do what we all do our bit to help SIPA on on its journey to net zero and society generally, um, it is. It's difficult to explain quite how inspirational it can be to be around such amazing innovators um and and hear their stories and for them to say that to have access to proactive IP support could be transformational for them. It could make a huge difference. It's enough inspiration for me to try and pick this up and run with it and see what we can do.
Speaker 4:Well, big, big thanks to you and Opinion for going out there and representing SEPA at Earthshot 2024. And obviously, for your vision in the first place for seeing this as something that would be a great thing for us and our members to get involved in. So you're doing a great job.
Speaker 5:Thanks. I must give props to Jerry Bridge Butler as well, because it was, I think, to be fair to say it was primarily his vision that got us involved in the first place. Since then we've we've become an official nominator and I've been able to get more involved. But respect to Jerry for for having the the idea in the first place.
Speaker 4:Cheers.
Speaker 5:Nope, thanks Lee.
Speaker 3:We'll see you next time. Two IPs in a. Two IPs in a. Two IPs in a.