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
Movember special: Addressing Men's Mental Health in the IP Industry
How do the pressures of the IP industry intersect with men's mental health, and what strides are being made to address them? Joining Lee and Gwilym this week are Graham Mccartney and Richard Wells, who shed light on Jonathan's Voice, a charity dedicated to supporting mental health in the IP sector. They also give insight to the amazing work of IP Inclusive, who promote and improve EDI and wellbeing throughout the UK’s IP professions.
Looking back over the past decade, significant progress in mental health support within the IP community is evident. But there is always more to be done.
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:Hey Gwilym. Two podcasts, one after another, on consecutive days. How are you coping with the strain of that, mate?
Speaker 1:I love it. I enjoy the podcasts. I always enjoy seeing you. We learn new things every time. How's that for an optimistic response? What have you learned recently, then? We learned about takedowns, didn't we? Yeah, and we've got a more serious one today. But I think our main concern is that we run out of banter if we have too many of these back to back. But I've got some, you've got some.
Speaker 4:So we're nearly 150 episodes in and you're still able to conjure up some fresh bents, which is impressive. You ready, go for it.
Speaker 1:Merry Christmas.
Speaker 4:No, it's too early.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no, no. It's too early.
Speaker 4:It's time no no, no, no, no. Honestly, before we came in to start the podcast, we were discussing in the office whether we should be playing Christmas music, and I'm clearly in a minority.
Speaker 1:It was playing downstairs simply having a wonderful Christmas time, was playing as I walked in with the little bells going, and I'm up for it this year. I'm ready for Christmas, I want to bring it early and I want up for it this year. I'm ready for Christmas, I want to bring it early and I want to bring a lot of it.
Speaker 4:That's my feeling. So I love Christmas as much as the next person.
Speaker 1:If the next person is really grumpy. Grinch, you're a cold giver. No, I don't know why. This year I'm on for it. I really want to bring the Christmas. I'm looking forward to the Seeper Christmas party. That's exciting. Christmas. I'm looking forward to the seep christmas party. That's exciting. Um, the office christmas party. I want to buy a tree now, get it up I'm done going for it.
Speaker 4:I just worry about christmas. I spend far too much money on far too many children and grandchildren. I don't, yeah, I never know how I'm going to survive all of the visitors.
Speaker 1:It just it spirals me into a state of misery and despair I've, luckily, my my kids do all the cooking now, which makes a huge difference. Um, the most difficult bit, and I don't want to spoil the mystery here, but father christmas has to do a lot of stockings. These days it's a big family tradition that father christmas has to do a lot of stockings and he's told me that it's exhausting and thankless I can only imagine it is.
Speaker 4:And you know, father, christmas, yes, a really tough time, doesn't he in December, particularly to one tough evening. So he must, it, must, it must get to him as well. He must fill the strain. So how good then that we're talking about men's mental health, did you like that?
Speaker 1:is he doing? Is Father Christmas doing Movember? That'd be a shock for everybody.
Speaker 4:The thing is, you have to. My understanding of Move which I'm not doing this year, but I've done previously is that you have to start from scratch, don't you? You have to start from a freshly shaved visage. So I imagine Father Christmas would probably not want to ever be seen in a way that he's never been seen previously, so maybe he can't do Movember for that reason. He'd need a chainsaw to get through that beard, wouldn't they absolutely? Or just something to cut the elastic anyway. Are you done? Are you done with the band? Should we get the guests?
Speaker 1:on. Yeah, that's all right. How did I do that?
Speaker 4:yeah, that was okay. That was okay. We can always edit it out afterwards. So, yeah, we've got two guests with us today to talk about issues around men's mental health, seeing as we are in the month of Movember, so let's shall we go with Graham first. Graham, welcome to the podcast, your first time on. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 5:Lee. Thank you, gwilym, delighted to be here. So shall I get cracking with an intro about myself? Yeah, tell us a little bit about you, okay? So I think, uh, people in the ip world who come across me have probably come across me in the context of the charity jonathan's voice. So I'm one of the co-founders of the charity, which has been going on for somewhere between um six and seven years. I mean, we we started going as a charitable organization about seven years. I mean, we started going as a charitable organisation about seven years ago, but it took a little while to become registered by that very august body, the Charity Commission. So, if you count from the Charity Commission date, we're a little bit over six years.
Speaker 5:The charity's work. I think people I hope a lot of your listeners have interacted with this or seen this on the web or been involved in webinars that we've put on with IP Inclusive, but essentially, we've been focusing on mental health and, with the help of Rich, more recently, we've tried to hone in a bit on men's mental health. Men's mental health and, of course, the reason for that, which is a family tragedy really, and I'll just mention briefly goes back to October 2017. And our son was Jonathan McCartney, and Jonathan joined the intellectual property profession straight out of university.
Speaker 2:He was a Durham.
Speaker 5:University graduate in engineering, graduated in 2005,. Went straight into the intellectual property profession from his undergraduate degree and, I believe, I think, qualified as both a European and UK patent attorney in 2008. So he was with Hazeltine Lake as it was then and he was based up in their Leeds office, which wasn't very far from us. We as a family lived in Nottingham Anyhow, as people might remember, around that time 2009, 2010,. Times were hard in the financial world and Jonathan was asked if he was interested in transferring to the Bristol office, which he did, and I think by about 2014, he'd become a partner and moved on then to become part of their their leadership team.
Speaker 5:But tragically and this is something which it's, you know, you can't say you ever understand it, but but Jonathan tragically took his own life in October 2017 at the age of only 35, and it's something that I've come to understand by people who have worked to try and understand suicide. It was what's called the Night of the Blue event. Nobody who was close to him, nobody who worked with him, really saw this coming, and it turns out that this actually is, sadly, not unusual for men. Often, this will just happen, apparently out of the blue. So, of course, there are situations where people do suffer ongoing issues of depression and so on and that does lead to, tragically, suicide, but very often in the case of men, it's an out of the blue event, suicide but but very often in the case of men it's a night of the blue event.
Speaker 5:So jonathan, you know, appeared to be on. On the outside things appeared to be going well and to give you a bit of context, he'd he'd been. He'd spent two weeks in america traveling around, being at one of these um international conferences that patent attorneys organized. He'd come back. He'd had a high profile client who was from america who'd come to visit him. He'd taken him up to leeds because at that time they were negotiating their tie-up with with kempner. So jonathan had been involved on that. His american colleague was a was a big fan of man United. So they crossed the Pennines and they went to Old Trafford on a Saturday and, rather poignantly, the very last communication I had from him was a picture by text which was of the Manchester United ground which obviously is called the Theatre of Dreams, which obviously is called the Theatre of Dreams. He came home back to Bristol and he didn't go into work. On Monday morning he rang up and said he wasn't feeling very well and that was the last anybody heard from him. So a completely out of the blue tragedy.
Speaker 5:And I think this is why we really, as a charity, want to focus on mental health in the IP profession, because we really feel that we'd like to encourage the profession to be more aware and to provide more training, to provide more support and, of course, ultimately we want to help all people. But when the opportunity arose, probably about a year ago, through work that Richard was doing through IP Inclusive, then we were very keen to join this emphasis on on men's mental health. So that's a, you know, an overview of where we are, just about context. Of course, I myself have never had anything to do with the IP world. I'm not a patent attorney, not a trademark attorney by profession. I have interest in engineering and specifically materials engineering, but I worked as an academic for my working life 35, 40 odd years.
Speaker 5:But I've never been a patent attorney other than in my professional life, to see them as someone who prevented me publishing papers because they always said oh no, you can't publish that.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much for sharing that story, graham. I've heard you sort of tell it a number of times now because we've talked over the last few years at events and so on, and it's such a sad sad story story and I know how difficult it's been for you about. But I know that you're quite proud with what you've managed to forge out of that in terms of jonathan's voice and the work that you're involved in there, which is just truly amazing and just. And to say that you, you aren't part of the ip world, I think would be a huge, huge understatement, because I think you are very much part of the fabric now and and I think the IP world would be a poorer place for you not being involved in it. So thank you for all you do, but should we get Rich on as well? Rich, do you want to tell us a wee bit about yourself?
Speaker 2:yeah, sure, thank you so much for having me on, lee and William. It's, it's really nice to be here. So, yeah, my name's Rich Wells. Um, for my sins, I'm a patent attorney, but I know this is a safe space. So, yeah, I guess we can talk about that. I've been in the profession since 2012, having worked in private practice until last year when I moved in-house to an ag tech company called Tropic Biosciences, which is a yeah, it's a really fantastic and vibrant place to work.
Speaker 2:How did I get involved in mental health and men's mental health?
Speaker 2:I'm sure we can dive into some more of the detail later, but I guess the whistle-stop tour is at my previous firm, park Clarkson, who had quite a forward-thinking way of viewing well-being.
Speaker 2:Um, I was trained as a mental health first aider and through that and the network of mental health first aiders in the ip world, I sort of came on andrea brewster's radar and that is how I started working a bit with ip inclusive and men's mental health. As graham alluded to that, that led me to essentially help Andrea. As kind of a very enthusiastic amateur. I put myself as to help build a bit of a collaborative spirit around putting on events and working really closely with Graham and Andrea and just to try and get men talking about mental health and try and get it as almost a topic that people are comfortable talking about in the IP world. So I guess that's the elevator pitch of me and how I entered this world. But well, not entered this world that sounds like it's been. That's an origin story that I don't think anyone's got time for today but entered the world of men's mental health in the IP profession.
Speaker 4:So yeah, that's pretty much me in a nutshell cheers rich and you have my every sympathy for coming finding yourself on um andrea brewster's radar, because I know, I know that that can be quite a challenging place to be it's a great place to be.
Speaker 2:She is a. She'll probably listen to this. I feel I should say that. So, yeah, so thank you. Shout out to andrea um for all the good work you do, but um, no, she. I think she is the driving force about about many good things that happen in the profession.
Speaker 4:You know she and I'd be exclusive are phenomenal so we know that this is a conversation that's quite difficult for men to have generally, but we need to have the conversation on this podcast. Where should we start? Where would be the best place to kick off a conversation?
Speaker 5:I think a good, a good place to kick it off might be um, I did an interview with a, with a journalist, probably a couple of years ago now, and when the article appeared in print I was maybe a little perturbed to see the headline that journalists used. The headline was mental health and law. Does ip have a culture problem? So I think that's a good place to kick off the conversation. That would be my starting point and see if we can maybe come up with some discussion points on that and see what the challenges are and what progress we've made.
Speaker 1:Should we ask Willem, by all means?
Speaker 4:Does IP have a culture problem?
Speaker 1:It's very interesting. Interesting, wasn't it? I was funny enough. I was actually um chatting to someone yesterday who was looking at going into the legal profession and I'm very clear that you know our sector is a is a not totally representative um, but you know, obviously we know a little bit, so I was discussing it on that basis and he was looking more at general law and I have to say that in that conversation I was saying that it feels a lot tougher in the general law world than in our world in terms of the work pressures and in particular in terms of the work-life balance that we all hear about. So I mean, you're hearing with junior uh solicitors in some of the big London players that the salaries are now going completely crazy but it's expected that you'll work till 2am or whatever it might be. It's just, it's just taken for granted and at least in the patent attorney world that pressure has never been there. I think we're well known to be to have a different approach to the to the hours challenge and I think most private practice firms at least are a bit embarrassed to tell the solicitors, for example, what our hours targets are, because they kind of look at us in slight amazement, that number. I'm not going to throw any numbers out on this podcast, but, uh, you know.
Speaker 1:So in a sense, the kind of the, the most prevalent kind of cause people point to in terms of mental health issues in the legal sphere more broadly, I don don't think really that well-known in the patent attorney world and look, I can't speak to the litigators. I think they have a tougher time than the transaction guys. So I think that if there is a problem it's not that. It's not the fact that we are worked to the bone and we're all going to 2 o'clock in the morning. We don't sleep anymore. I think it's a profession where you can get a good work life balance. But that's not me saying that there aren't other issues. It's just not as obvious perhaps as the issue that tends to come out of the broader legal practice. I haven't answered the question, lee, but I have started a bit more of the conversation.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, that's been interested on Richie's and Graham's take on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm quite happy to dive in here, william. I think I agree with what you're saying about the way in which, if you compare IP as an area of law with general law, that there does feel to be this difference and I don't know whether that comes from. As we know IP well, pattern attorneys are scientists first, lawyers second, and I think they come from maybe a different place, maybe attracts different mindset. There's a different set of expectations there and you know, I think people who do law know what they're signing up for when they, when they decide on their degree course. But that's less so with pattern attorney. So I don't know whether that sort of that, whether that almost grassroots culture, comes from the kind of people it attracts. But one thing that is always challenging when you almost set a very high bar to compare against, clearly, if you look at London law firms, the starting salaries that are in the press at the moment, that does feel terrible, but that doesn't diminish that there are challenges in the IP world clearly, and I don't know whether some of that is the people that come to it scientists first, lawyers second. Not saying that they're not set up for it, but I know when I joined the profession.
Speaker 2:I came from a PhD where basically I was wearing three quarter lengths all through the year, very casual.
Speaker 2:And you enter this professional world because you think, oh, it's a stable job, it sounds interesting, and you know it feels like you're expected to write like Shakespeare, communicate like Obama party, like Prince Harry, and you know it's, it's an alien world and it's quite a jump.
Speaker 2:And I don't know whether some of the the culture, if it's a problem, is just of the way in which, the way in which expectations might be built when you enter the profession and how that changes when you grow through it, particularly thinking about challenges such as sort of perfectionism and imposter syndrome and all these impacts that can be quite negative on mental health. And so I don't think there's the same culture problem that there is with big law in the kind of more general sense, as you say, william, but I still think that maybe there are. There are areas that the profession can work on because it is high pressure. It is high pressure, it's undoubted. You know you might not be working till 10, but when before you log off at five and you've got that pattern pattern application to file, then then that is that is stressful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I completely agree and I'm sorry to be clear, I just I think. I think it's not. We don't have the same hours pressure. That's not to say there aren't different pressures that can call Absolutely. And I think your point is brilliant about the people who come into it, because I don't know many people who, from the age of six, were saying I want to be a patent attorney. People tend to fall into it, whereas I suspect if you want to be a lawyer, you may well have had a longer term plan to do that and perhaps, as a result, started adjusting your kind of mindset towards those pressures. I don't know, but there's something around you, I'm sure you're right the people that come into it and also the route in which remains, I think, slightly still quite haphazard after all these years. I mean, it's always I I heard about it from a careers advisor also. I knew someone who did it. It's always a strange kind of entry, so maybe people come in with slightly less expectation and not thought it through. I don't know.
Speaker 5:I don't know I think I think thinking about what people talk to us about. You know, we we go to conferences, we go to we have exhibitor stores at conferences and so on, and people do come up and talk about it. And I think for people coming into the profession, early career profession, one of the pressures I think is the way some organisations conduct training although I think there's been a lot of progress in that. But I think one of the pressures that early career people feel is the training and the learning on the job and and and the way training's provided. There is a great deal and sometimes they find it hard to understand what they should be doing. Um, that the training is often drafting red pen, go and redraft, rather than training draft, explain what's wrong, go and redraft. So I think there's an element of that that early career people find difficult. And I think the other big thing is managing deadlines.
Speaker 5:That deadlines do seem to hang over everybody, everybody we talk to, talks about deadlines and how critical that is and the pressures of getting things right and the implications of of making mistakes. So I think those are the areas that people talk to us about, which may or may not be representative, but I think I think I agree with you that probably it's too strong to say there's a culture problem, but I think there's a ways of working that introduce pressures and I think what I was keen to talk about today was, you know, as Rich and I we've been trying to work out, men's mental health and you know, are there things that firms could be doing better, organisations could be doing better to really help men with adapting and accommodating and managing these kinds of issues that come up?
Speaker 1:I'm happy to come back on the training and deadlines point and to be really, really clear I'm not defending the profession at all. Actually, I think there clearly is a problem, it's been manifested and it's something that you're quite right, we need these organisations to address. Defending the profession at all, actually, I think we there clearly is a problem. They manifested, uh, and it's something that you're quite right, we need these organizations to address. But I think the safest way to look at it is how it used to be, rather than trying to comment on how it is now, which I think is a bit risky, but how it used to be. As someone who started in 1990, it was a victorian profession when I started, I think the whole was, and so you were trained the way that the last five generations have been trained. And, yeah, deadline management was something I think you were trained also.
Speaker 1:Some quite dodgy deadline management Deadline was a thing to run as fast as you could and then hit with a smash was basically quite a common trend rather than, for example, doing it early was basically quite a common trend rather than, for example, doing it early. And the concept of any kind of HR I doubt if any firm had an HR department in 1990 in our boutique profession. I'm pleased to say that these days there's obviously far more awareness and fantastic work that Jonathan Boyce and IP Inclusive and other things do. It's a huge part of that. But, looking back, certainly historically it was a pretty old school setup and I think that brought many of its problems. So I was going to probably leave it at that in terms of, rather than starting to cause problems with firms writing in saying, hang on, we're trying really hard because we know that they are Maybe, yeah, as you say, move on to some of the stuff that's out there.
Speaker 4:Liam, I'm handing it back to you now because I feel like I'm getting defensive, and I shouldn't be so I don't think there's a problem with getting defensive grill.
Speaker 4:I think that's that's part of conversation, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, but but I mean and I vote my exposure to the profession has only been what I'm just coming up for, 13 years in now and I remember thinking, when I came in and I'll speak quite candidly now, if that's okay I didn't recognize anything that looked like training, and I come from an educationalist background. That's, that's my bag, that's what I do, and I I found it quite difficult to see where training was happening at that time. The informals were entirely distinct and separate from SEPA. So they were. They were effectively a self-help group of students that existed largely on their on their own devices, with little support and help, and the the training that happened within firms was I think graham said it was largely down to the um, to the individual firm, and I actually think it's come a lot long way in.
Speaker 4:That time doesn't mean to say that there's not a journey, that we still need to go on and there's not more that we can do. But we now have the informals embedded in SEPA so they have a formal relationship, representation on council and those kinds of things. Together we've set up a mental health advisor network through the informals so that there is that point of contact in the student community around mental health. And we're having some really serious conversations about the structure of the examinations. And when we have those conversations we do talk about the way the examination and the structure of the examination impacts on the well-being of students and candidates. So it feels to me that we've come a long way in the last decade, but that doesn't mean to say that there's not still some way to go I would agree, I think.
Speaker 5:I think what I would say is it's been great to see the progress. It's been great to see the progress on many, many different fronts, really positive, and we just need to make sure that that that progress as you said, lee, that we keep looking, reviewing and making progress on on those fronts. I think. I think that's that's the good news. And I think the good news, if we can just talk a bit about November, the good news is that men and mental health is being spoken about more and if we just talk about what we've done, I mean we're now heading towards our third event and we've got a fourth event in the calendar and we've had some great speakers.
Speaker 5:We had Nick Bloy for the very first event back in November 2023. We had James McFarlane in June 24, who was truly inspiring, from Scotland and talked about the work he had done. We've got the event which is coming up next week on the 21st of November Kelty in their London office, which is going to be a hybrid event, and that's going to be a lady who's done research on suicide and preventive measures at the University of Glasgow, dr Susie Bennett, who was partly funded by the donations that people made to our charity. Actually, she's made some groundbreaking researches on suicide in men, so she's going to come and talk about that and I think then we've got a wonderful guy lined up for February. Rich, haven't we, who you and Andrea have managed to lay your hands on?
Speaker 2:to uh lay your hands on. Yeah, it's a man called um ryan park who's he specializes in understanding men's mental health and sort of looks at it from the scientific perspective. Um, his webinar that he's giving is is kind of slightly provocatively titled, the myth that kills men, and it's sort of about um, the role that testosterone has to play. That's one thing that he looks at in mental health and interplay there. So really fascinating stuff. And I think, yeah, I think, like Graham said, there's a bit of a track record and there's momentum. And I think one thing you know we're talking about positivity here and you know there's maybe some sort of reflection that we'll we'll do later in the podcast.
Speaker 2:But each of these events that were put on, apart from the webinar coming in february, has been fully supported by a firm within the ip community. There's real support out there and you know these are people giving their, their time. There's technical support, well into the evening, their office space putting on drinks and snacks. It sounds small, but actually these, these organizations, don't need to do this. They don't get a lot of kudos, you know. We can say them here's madison squire for the first one, eip for the second one and, and as graham said, kelty for the third um. But I think there's and this and this is maybe the nub of where we've got to there's the real acknowledgement and there's the real support there. I think sometimes the challenge is just knowing what to do with that, particularly around men's mental health. It's not that people don't care, people care. They just don't know which direction to care in sometimes.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think that's a very good point, rich, and I think it is great that we've had firms on board. I think it does show their commitment and I think firms and other organizations really do see it, or are beginning to see it increasingly as a good investment, because it's an investment in ensuring people thrive, in ensuring people remain well and ultimately that's good business. It makes good business sense and it's an investment in the future. It's an investment ensuring that when people come and, as I understand it, maybe Gwilym will tell me differently recruiting people by whatever means, into the patent attorney profession is not straightforward and finding good people is challenging. So having the best possible working environment is always going to be a hook for people and and good for recruitment. So I think I think firms recognize it's an investment, an investment in the present, an investment in the future, are you completely right.
Speaker 1:You know any business like ours. The people are the asset. You know, that's all we've got. We haven't got machines doing patents well, not yet. Anyway, it's the people that count and a really important thing there actually is that getting obviously getting the right people into the businesses is a challenge, is a range of skills. I hadn't picked up on the partying strength point that you mentioned, richard, but that's also not irrelevant occasionally. But also retaining is a big deal and I think this is where retention comes in. If you're not happy in what you're doing, if you're not enjoying it for whatever reason, then you know you're more likely to move on and that all that investment and work, finding the right people, and then we've got to make sure that we keep them.
Speaker 4:When we keep keep people happy, then it's a great job and we really want people to enjoy it can I just add something to that that graham said, because I think I don't hear this said often enough. I don't think whenever we have these conversations about mental health men's mental health, however we might frame it we always talk about the business case. It's about returning people to productivity, it's about the environment. Sometimes we just ought to say it's the right thing to do. You know, I mean, yes, it's all, it's all of those things, but it's just the right thing to do, and I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that occasionally I completely agree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's simple but effective, isn't it? I think sometimes the business case especially if there's there, there's needs to be money to be spent internally, though that's the sad truth of it. Sometimes the business case needs to be made, doesn't it? But ultimately, it's the right thing to do so. Well, it should be enough.
Speaker 4:Push it over the line, I guess one of the earliest conversations I had with andrea this was about um. This wasn't about mental health specifically. It was in the early days of ip inclusive, where we were talking about um, edi, generally at meetings, largely with managing partners, and it was always about well, what's the business case for edi? What's the business case for inclusion? What's it's like? Sometimes it's just the right thing to do and you know there might be a cost to it. Yes, yeah, we can. We can do the financial kind of playing around with pound shillings and pence and demonstrate that actually there's a productivity outcome, positive productivity outcome, but it's still the right thing to do absolutely can I take it a slightly different uh direction?
Speaker 4:and I don't, graham. I don't know whether we've had this conversation before, but I've. I have, um, I've never had experience of a family member taking their own life. I do have experience of people that I was close to, and this this goes back to my time in teaching, and it caused me to train in counselling because I just felt that I needed to understand what the process, what was happening.
Speaker 4:And for me, the two instances that I experienced were both so similar that I don't know why I missed the signs the second time around, and that was what caused me to see whether getting some training would would help me in future. So they were both students. They were separated in terms of in my career by a few years, so it happened to cost maybe three or four years, but both did exactly the same thing, and that's that they they had finished their courses. They were both at mature adult students. They'd finished their courses. They were both mature adult students.
Speaker 4:They'd finished their plumbing courses and they came a year, two years, after they qualified and made a really sort of deliberate show of thanking me for everything I'd done yeah, the contribution I've made to their life. It was as if they were saying goodbye, but I didn't twig, and then both of them took their lives. The day that they had that conversation with me and I I mean, I won't say that I particularly got that out of my training and all I want to ask is are there things that we could be looking for in our relationships with people that might help us understand when someone is in a particularly dark place, or is this so difficult that we can't engage?
Speaker 5:I think it's incredibly difficult.
Speaker 5:I think that the person to really ask is Susie Bennett, who's giving the talk next week at Kelty. She studied this in great depth about are there signs? And I think the answer is it's a really difficult problem. There are many, many variables and that's why we're sadly still at the situation that you know the statistics of 80 men per week take their own life in the UK because it is so difficult to pick up on signs or nuances of what's happening.
Speaker 5:I don't think I have any specific, easy or even complex guidelines I can give you. I think, listening to people carefully as you know you'll have picked up from your counselling training we really need to try and listen and listen carefully to what people are saying, not have superficial answers. But I think, even as you've seen, the people came to you, they came with a story, not in a crisis mode, and therefore, why would you pick up anything? So I think they're supple, it's very complex and I think, unfortunately, we need to understand more about would you pick up anything? So I think I think they're supple, it's very complex and I think, unfortunately, we need to understand more, more about, much more about it, which was what motivated us to go to um, to go to a university, the university of glasgow and part fund and support some of the work they're doing and for people who who would like to try and understand more, there is an excellent lead academic at Glasgow, professor Rory O'Connor, who communicates wonderfully with the public. He's got many, many podcasts and appears regularly on radio and TV and he really is able to communicate about suicide, the multifaceted aspects of suicide and and people. I would encourage people to listen to what he has to say, follow him on linkedin, look at some of the things he's saying and that's a good starting place to try and understand more about this very complex and difficult problem.
Speaker 1:I was going to say. One thing that I'm personally super valuable from the awareness raising and some of the chilling numbers that we hear about, has been to rethink my relationship with my own kids as they get older. Having heard some of these kind of stories about the surprise and things, how they can come and come from a family background where you kind of leave home and then you kind of phone once a month, I'm a lot closer to my, my sons and my daughters. Well, of course, I'm much closer to my sons than I might have been otherwise, because I don't feel that they're quite. They get to 18 and everything's okay and they're off and their life's their own and they don't need the support network anymore. So it's been really good for me. Actually, in that sense I think I've rethought some of the kind of preconceptions I didn't realise I had about my own family relationships as the background. Not saying that I'll necessarily spot things, but you know the feeling that I'm trying and I'm trying to be there for them. That's really helped me. So I've appreciated that.
Speaker 5:And the work that you guys have done to the awareness has been brilliant. From that yes, I think it's. It's one of the.
Speaker 5:When we first started the charity, I probably was more on top of these statistics than I am now, but when I used to go and talk to groups, I used to talk to them about the fact that, as a parent of teenage children, probably the thing you worried about was when you sent your son, particularly, past a driving test they went on their own driving a car. There were probably things that you worried a lot about and actually, if you looked at the statistics, for a young man, dying in road traffic accidents was not the most common cause of death. It was, in fact, taking their own lives by suicide, and that was something that people really really were surprised about, and I think that is. It's good to hear you say, william, that that you're more aware of that kind of statistic, and I think that is important because it's yes, workplaces are important, but but yes, families are are also crucial in supporting individuals and I think one thing that's really nice about this conversation and important is it's maybe not always about focusing it on spotting what the signs are.
Speaker 2:This is clearly important and and we need to look out for each other, but it's almost just that mindset shift that individuals can have about the relationships that they form with others and the environment that you built, because if you build an open environment where people are willing to talk, it lessens the responsibility of people looking out for signs in many ways, because hopefully conversations are more open.
Speaker 2:I'd say honest. Calling conversations honest makes it sound like if you're hiding stuff, you're dishonest. You know that, that kind of the repercussive effect, as you'd say as a patent attorney, but it's, um, I think if we can build environments and form relationships that are open to talking about mental health, that opens the window to, if people are having suicidal feelings, that they do discuss it with someone that they trust. And so I think you know, william, your experience is really heartening that the way in which communities can talk about these things, or almost a separation away from individuals, causes individuals to reflect on their own lives and and and you know, maybe change their own actions in a positive way yeah, and I do think that it's.
Speaker 5:It's good to see the changes that there are in the culture in firms and in organizations and it's important to remember that it's leadership teams that set those cultures and it's important to remember that engaging with leadership teams is very important. Of course, there's a bottom-up element to all of these things, but seeing leadership teams really set the culture and make people aware that there are support mechanisms, there are individuals trained as mental health first-agers.
Speaker 4:However, that permeates the organisation, the leadership team being invested in that is a crucial element I think leadership is the key, isn't it good might there be a leadership event coming up that people might be interested in you are so good at this thing.
Speaker 1:Yes, um, so one of the kind of threads of ip inclusive is a kind of a senior leaders thread. It's not, I don't think it's one of the kind of defined groups, but it was again as usual, andrea, making us all better people recognizing that if the leadership isn't buying in properly to the whole picture EDI across the board, all the elements of it and everything beyond that as well then it's not really going to permeate through the business, and I've always characterized it as you can't just delegate these things to the HR department. So the senior leaders do some stuff, and one of them, coming up on the 25th at Kilmer's Road, is about how to be a good ally and, funnily enough, rich, this actually links to your point about we want to care, we don't know which direction to care in. I loved that. I love the concept for the geeks of care as a vector yeah, um, but scientists and engineers like that but we only get the care vector correctly aligned.
Speaker 1:Um, but allyship is along the same same lines and we have this this comes up a lot, lee, when we do the IP-inclusive conversations and the EDI conversations is, yeah, we want to be an ally, we want to help. What do we say? How do we start the conversation? And that's going to be one of the big topics that we look at on the 25th Great panel. Very quick plug Colin Burse, sir Colin Burse, van Dita Chandr van dita chandrani and suzanne oliver um, all talking about their insights and thoughts about how to be a good ally.
Speaker 4:So thank you for letting me plug that very important and it's all part of the same big picture that we're all trying to work towards, I think I know we've been through the um jonathan's voice events, but do you want to just give a shout out again for the one that I think is next week?
Speaker 5:yeah, that's right, november the 21st. It's on the IP Inclusive website registration there and it's being held at the Kelty offices in London, so it's going to be a hybrid event. It'd be great to have as many people get along as possible. It starts at 5.30, from memory. If you're not able to get along, then you can register and join online, and I think it'd be a great occasion to listen to dr susie bennett talk about her groundbreaking research, um, which was done at the university of glasgow, and what she's now doing is creating materials in conjunction with an organization called man up. If people haven't come across the organization man up again, it's well worth having a look at what they do, but, as the name suggests, they focus on men's mental health, but she's working with them to turn her research materials into materials that are more readily accessible by the general public, and she'll be talking about that.
Speaker 5:So absolutely you know if, if anyone at the last minute can register the still space, please do.
Speaker 2:And I don't know whether Rich has the date in his head of the Ryan Park event. Yes, just on the event, 21st November. Just worth mentioning, I think, edward Belknap's efforts as well, because I've not had anything to do with this. This is um edward kelty, who's of taken the initiative, and I think he reached out to you, graham, didn't he? And, and that's that was the genesis of that, which is really good, and I think that came from edward.
Speaker 2:Coming to our previous events, and this is it's really nice the way in which the willingness to, to push forward on men's mental health feels like it's permeating through the profession in a really good way. But yeah, on to the webinar. So that's on the 5th of February next year. So it's a date for your diary. I think it's 12.30. So it's sort of a lunch and learn, as I think you like to say, when it feels like you're disappearing off instead of working. But it should be great.
Speaker 2:Ryan Parkin, that's also on the IP Inclusive website as well, so you can register for that too, and I think both events, as with everything for IP, inclusive and Jonathan's Voice are free at the point of contact. So there's obviously no cost to attend either of these events and the more people we have talking about men's mental health or just being in the room and soaking it all up, the better. Frankly, and and it should, should be said as well that, um, genders are relevant to attending these events. We're talking about men's mental health, but we're, you know, men and individuals who identify men welcome as our, you know, allies of the genders.
Speaker 4:Thanks both for coming on the podcast. It's been a true delight having you on. At this stage I would normally ask a question and that question would be is there a question we should have asked you that we haven't asked? Is there anything else you want to say? But can I ask a slightly different question and then I'll hand over to Gwilym, because I think Gwilym's got a closing question. So my question would be what would you want people to from the conversation we've had over the last 45, 50 minutes, but what should be people's big takeouts on this?
Speaker 2:I'll let Graham go first. I can think.
Speaker 5:Okay, my takeaway is that we're moving. The vector analogy yeah, let me home in on the vector analogy. The vector analogy is that we're heading in the right direction. We're going at a good speed, but it would be nice to go faster, but I think it's a positive message. I think the other takeaway is that we want as many people as possible to get involved. We just want to reach out to as many people as we can. We have a LinkedIn channel. We've got 885 followers on that linkedin channel, but I'd love to double that. Um, I'd love to have people contributing. So, please, please, follow us on linkedin, see what we're doing, keep abreast of what we're doing, have a quick look at our website and we'd love to have people hosting events, writing material from an IP perspective. Our unique selling point, remember, is to work with the IP community, so the more involvement we can have with the community, the better.
Speaker 4:Thank you, graham, and so, rich, what would yours be?
Speaker 2:Oh, I've now bought some time, um, so I think mental health in general, and, you know, specifically men's mental health, is a challenging topic and I think it's very easy to get like analysis paralysis. We, as scientists, pattern attorneys, like to understand everything and to be able to boil everything down into individual components we can fully understand. But don't let that analysis paralysis get in the way of you know, if you're you're struggling, reaching out for help, or if you want to help, trying to affect change in your firm, your community, whatever you know, and it's really don't let perfection be the enemy of the good. Really, if you're interested but you don't know what to do, reach out to me, reach out to Graham, reach out to Andrea. There's many ways in which you can learn and many ways in which you can help and get help.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much for that. I'm just conscious of how difficult it will be for patent attorneys to hear Not let perfection be the enemy of the good. That's yeah.
Speaker 2:Good luck, Good luck out there. But yeah, you know, I think it's true and maybe that's part of the problem in the profession.
Speaker 4:Thank you both for sharing your time with us. Ordinarily, at the end I would come up with some closing question to take us all by surprise, but Gwendolyn and I have been discussing in the chat. We don't know what each of our questions are, but I think mine is quite safe and possibly something we've done previously when we've had these conversations. Gwilym tells me he's got a silly one. So I quite fancy letting Gwilym do the silly one, if that's all right with you two. So the way this works is that Gwilym's going to ask me his question, he's going to then ask it of you two, and then I'm going to surprise him by throwing it back to him All yours, Gwilym.
Speaker 1:It is really silly and I feel a bit guilty after a really quite serious conversation. But hey, you know, let's just let's go with it anyway. So, Lee, we talked at the very beginning about I'm already feeling Christmy and you're not that ready for it. What is the thing that triggers the beginning of the christmas, or should we say the festive period, for you?
Speaker 4:oh wow, what a question. Um, I'm not as bar humbug as I presented earlier. I do. I do actually enjoy christmas. I just I just like christmas to happen, sort of like, at the right time. So, grillam, it's actually my birthday. So my birthday is 14th of December. Remember that I'll expect a card, and for me, that's always been my trigger point. That's when Christmas starts, for no logical or obvious reason other than that's my birthday.
Speaker 1:Great answer, so should we pass it around? Yeah, yeah, go for it. So, graham, it's a great answer, so should we pass it around.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, go for it, graham. A trigger point is when I see those boxes of mince pies piled high on the shelves of the supermarket. And my measure of inflation is how much they have gone from one pound, which is what they were two or three years ago. So my measure of inflation is what the one pound box of mince pies is now going to cost in 2024 any predictions.
Speaker 1:What's your prediction?
Speaker 5:oh, I think we're heading towards. Well, it depends where you buy them. So I think we're heading towards 140, maybe 140, 150, I'm not sure lee, where are you going on this?
Speaker 4:I don't eat mince pies so, a bit like a politician, I have no idea how much they cost.
Speaker 5:I'm surprised they're as little as £1 well, you need to shop where I shop.
Speaker 2:I was going to say mince pies was going to be my trigger as well, but I'll find another one. But on that I bought a six pack of mince pies for $4.50 yesterday. They've all gone, all gone in less than 24 hours. But yeah, I feel like the financial burden of keeping that burn rate going until the 25th of December is going to bankrupt me.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think my trigger is I've got two young kids, so that's their first, they're twins, that's their first year in school. And I've got a new trigger, which is the october emails from school, completely binding your diary up with christmas events. Seemingly, from mid-november, like, our calendar looks like a mess of shoe boxes, costumes, various things that we need to send. So yeah, I I do feel like that's the trigger. For me, it's when diary politics becomes even more problematic in our house.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I'm glad that these two of us here buy our own mince pies. Breaking news SIPA CEO has people to buy his mince pies for him. That's what I've learned from this.
Speaker 4:No, we love us. I don't eat mince pies. It's not that someone buys them for me. So come on then, gwilym. What would be your trigger moment? Do?
Speaker 1:you know what? It's the first Christmas pudding, which is almost invariably at some weird IP event, funnily enough. But we've got dinner coming up and we'll, when the Christmas pudding comes up, that's suddenly I get all excited.
Speaker 4:So it's a good job. We're not talking more about Christmas, isn't it? Because I've now come up with another Christmas question, so I'll save that for our festive special, gwilym. So expect a cracking Christmas question that's difficult to say Later in December. Graham Rich, thank you so much for coming on and sharing not just your time, also your um, your experiences, your expertise and just insights into, into a topic that's difficult for men to talk about and difficult to talk about a podcast. So I these these are always for us the podcast where we probably worry the most about things that we might say, because we're talking about stuff that actually is, by definition, quite difficult to talk about. So so thank you for the conversation we've had today. Thank you, grillam, I'll see you on the next one, and just a thank you to everyone who's listened to this, and if you've found it inspiring, interesting, informative, then leave us a little review on the podcasting platform of your choice and other people will find the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much thank you thank you other people will find the podcast. Thank you very much, thank you. Thank you. Outro Music.