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
Teaching Intellectual Property with Enrico Bonadio
The vital intersection between academia and real-world intellectual property practice takes center stage as Lee and Gwilym welcome Enrico Bonadio from City St George’s University of London. His unique journey from IP litigation in Milan to academic research and teaching offers powerful insights into how theoretical and practical perspectives on intellectual property complement each other.
Bonadio reveals how his litigation background enriches his teaching by providing strategic perspectives on how IP rights are actually deployed. This practical foundation allows him to break down complex legal concepts into real-world scenarios that engage students and demonstrate IP's pervasive impact on daily life. Whether you're an IP practitioner seeking fresh perspectives, a student considering this field, or simply curious about how intellectual property shapes our world, this episode offers valuable insights into the dynamic relationship between academic exploration and practical application.
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 Institute of Patent.
Speaker 3:Attorneys.
Speaker 4:So, gwilym, welcome to another podcast. Good to see you again. It must be at least what a week since I saw you in person. I think it's a bit of a gap. Bit of a gap. Yeah. So SEPA Council last week Always good to see you around. That, were you there.
Speaker 2:I was there. I was there, I was there, yeah.
Speaker 4:It's a really exciting day for me because we had SEPA council and then a few of us disappeared to the pub. The pub where we go to I don't know if I'm allowed to mention on the podcast, but we go to the Christopher Hatton just opposite the office. And the trouble with the Christopher Hatton I don't know if you noticed it, but it's got no mobile signal and whilst we were there I missed my son trying to get hold of me to announce the fact that I'd become a granddad for the seventh time, seventh time?
Speaker 2:No, you sent me a photo of the baby Very. We don't know his name now, but Hudson, hudson. Lovely looking little thing, very healthy looking thing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, nice, I just kind of just knock them out now, don't they? It's just, I get used to it, they just keep arriving.
Speaker 2:Love it. Well, I had Beth's, my daughter's, third birthday party at the weekend. Oh how can she be three already, I know. So we quizzed her this time on party games that she'd like and she's beginning to know a little bit about party games and her choices were obviously musical statues, obviously, obviously, pass the Parcel.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, slightly less obviously, musical tangerines. Oh, is this one of your made-up games. It turned out it's not me. She said I want to play musical tangerines. So yeah, we played musical tangerines.
Speaker 4:I think it's going to take off have you got time quickly to tell us the rules?
Speaker 2:well, I think it's going to be a very fluid uh, a very fluid game, but it can be interpreted in different ways. But what we did was you gave each this is three year olds, you gave each child a tangerine and then obviously they have to name the tangerine, right? I had a bunch of names. One beth's was called beth. Someone else had a tangerine called reemy. Then you play some music and you dance with your tangerine and when the music stops, you fall to the floor and then check your tangerines, okay, and then you feed it to your mum or your dad. That's a lovely's a lovely game. It's actually a really, really good game. It went down very well. Kids enjoyed it, parents enjoyed it, as long as they weren't allergic to tangerine.
Speaker 4:Is this a Robert's original or is this something you've done before? It is now.
Speaker 2:No, it's just Beth's idea. I want to play musical tangerines, so off we went.
Speaker 4:Oh cool. I don't think of a better way to start a podcast, can you other than having an amazing guest? And we've got a great guest on today, so I'm quite looking forward to this one. It's been a little while since we've had anybody from the world of academia to talk to us about, um, what's happening there and how that crosses over to our world of ip. So so we've got Enrico with us. Enrico, hi, how are you? I'm fine, thanks.
Speaker 3:Thanks for the invitation.
Speaker 4:It's lovely to have you on the podcast For our listeners. Would you care to tell us a?
Speaker 3:wee bit about yourself. Yes, of course, my name is Enrico Bonadio and I am an academic specialising in intellectual property law at City St George's's University of London, and so IP is my occupation. I teach, I conduct research in the field of IP by looking at all IP rights patents, copyright, trademarks. I come from the private practice. Before joining academia in 2009 in the uk, I basically was in private practice in in in italy, milan, as an ip litigator, so I I I advise clients in several areas again trademark law, patent law and copyright law.
Speaker 4:Yes, and what um? What caused the move to the world of academia? What was the spur for you to do that?
Speaker 3:Well, while working as a lawyer, I also completed my PhD at the University of Florence, a PhD where I studied in depth the TRIPS agreement and from an international trade perspective, and especially biotech patents and especially biotech patents. So I always had this academic perspective profile and I found then that studying, researching and teaching, having contact with students, was more my cup of tea. I would say I like both teaching and researching. I like to make students passionate about IP. That's my mission.
Speaker 4:Is that an easy gig, or do you find that a bit of a challenge?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I find it very pleasant. So if you do things while remaining happy, it means that it's easier to do them right. So I like this aspect of my job to communicate and to transmit my passion for this subject. I must say this subject is very nice, so it helps me a lot in communicating.
Speaker 3:It's an area of law which I suddenly fell in love with 25 years ago when I first did my master in IP was a WIPO master in Turin and I must say that the things we teach as IP scholars are really appealing to students, because what I always tell my students the very first day of the IP module IP surrounds us From the minute you wake up in the morning until the minute you sleep at night. In those 14, 15 hours you are exposed to IP. When you go to the supermarket brands, when you use your computer, your laptop software, IP permeates our lives and I think students appreciate this because they realize really ip is surrounding us and therefore studying such subject, which is very different ip nights, are very different from themselves. It's important, right, because, uh, it affects our daily lives positively and sometimes negatively.
Speaker 4:And, seeing as you're kind of one of your early interests I think you said there was trips Do you get trips? Obviously cuts across trade and trade's been a biggie for the UK since it decided to cut itself free from the European Union. Have you kept yourself on top of trade agreements and stuff like that? Is that something you have an active interest?
Speaker 3:in. I mean I studied the withdrawal agreement, the post brexit withdrawal agreement, the ip aspects of the withdrawal agreement, uh and uh, yeah, I'm interested in that, even if still I cannot see yet how uk is diverging a lot from the EU. Acquiesce, I would say, yes, it formally now can diverge, but I don't think that this freedom to diverge will be fully exploited, because I think it is in the British interest to align as much as possible with EU rules on ip because it's the biggest trading partner. So for fully exploiting economies of scale, right does not make sense to diverge too much right from from that set of rules. Um so, but yes, of course I am interested in the trade related, international trade related aspects of of ip because, again, what I tell my students is that you know the lack of IP protection is an obstacle to trade. It's a non-tariff barrier to trade, right, yeah, that's what I tell them all the time tell them all the time yeah, um.
Speaker 2:So this is a good example actually of of that crossover between academia and the rest of ip. Um, because, uh, it's everyone. All these different areas contribute different things and you've got the great experience of being in private practice and then going into academia. But I think realistically, if it weren't for academia, who would be talking about trips and gross economic effects and tariffs and not tariffs and things? So really that's a big role for academia to do that blue sky thinking for everyone else.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, you're right, because it's the task of academics to study the TRIPS and to understand and to interpret TRIPS provisions. To study the TRIPS and to understand it. To interpret TRIPS provisions. I mean lawyers are less exposed to TRIPS because they are more interested in national laws, right? Or EU law, which is a regional law. But you know national laws. They need to comply with.
Speaker 3:Trips. Trips has not been a revolutionary tool for industrialized countries. Actually, the TRIPS agreement has been imposed by industrialized countries on developing and least developed countries because, if you look at the wording of many provisions in the TRIPS agreement is borrowed from us patent law or trademark, eu trademark law. You know, it's the task of academics in general to study IP law, also for the benefit of policymakers, right? So academia is really important to inform policymakers, to influence policymakers, influence policymakers because, let's be honest, if we leave ip as a subject in the hands of lawyer and patent attorneys, that, with all my respect, of course, which of course is, is a necessary profession, but it's just a part of the picture, right? And we also need to look at academic works, because academics can, I think, see this fair, 360 degrees, right, and can also assess the impact of legislations on society, right, and that's why, regularly, the British government, the European Commission and the US government, what they do is to launch consultations, right, one of them is very recent, about AI and IP, as you may be aware.
Speaker 3:I mean, and these consultations are, of course, are attended, attended, are used by lawyers. The point, the point of view of lawyers is important, of course, because, at the end of the day, they work with the final rule in front of judges and therefore, but of course, academics can also play a role by analyzing the impact of IP legislation on society, on various aspects of society, of course. So I think that, yes, academia should even more represent a bridge right Towards, a bridge which connects the expertise, the academic expertise, with policymaking, by making sure that all voices are heard and represented Right. And you know, sometimes, and unfortunately at EU level, also at national level, sometimes the voice of some stakeholders is louder than the voice of other stakeholders, right, consumers vis-a-vis industry or platforms. We need to make sure that all voices are heard and academics can help on that.
Speaker 4:Totally, I've got a score Go on then Can I just cut in. I don't cut across you often, mate Go on, I've got a score.
Speaker 2:I don't cut across you often mate, go on I've got across often.
Speaker 4:So get on, don't lose track of where you were going with this. But I was really interested in rico in the points that you were making there about the um, the intersection between academia and policy making, and I mean I'm sure you had an eye on the uk's accession to the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific Partnership, the CPTPP. Sepa was all over that in terms of concerns we had about how the provisions in the CPTPP may not align neatly with the EPC European Patent Convention and our role in the EPA our role in the EPA. So we spent quite a lot of time working with and through government to try and ensure that in signing up to the CPTPP we didn't injure any of our existing agreements and relationships. But it never crossed my mind for one minute to reach out to the academic world to see how we could work together with academia to do that. So how do you influence policymaking? How do academics involve themselves in influencing policy? I'm really interested.
Speaker 3:Well, for example, myself, I have been commissioned several years ago by the European Parliament, a report on standard essential patents. By the way, I also do research in the field of standard essential patents in the IT, in the Internet of Things sector. The IT in the Internet of Things sector, and what academics do are writing reports commissioned by parliaments, by the European Commission, and in this way they can participate right to the decision process, to the preparatory work which then leads to, for example, a regulation proposal or a directive proposal. So increasingly, in both america and europe, uk academics are part of this process, and that's fantastic insight.
Speaker 4:Yeah, right, yeah, I really appreciate that and, um, I think my learning from this is the next time we involve ourselves in a big policy area, we need to reach out more to the academic world, and that that hadn't really crossed my mind previously. Good to you.
Speaker 2:Apologies for a little um interjection no, actually just a quick comment on that, pointly just, I think, for good order. Duncan matthews and queen mary were definitely there at the beginning of those conversations and gave me some good steers. So so shout out to academics. But you're right, I think the level of power they bring, kind of an influence they bring, is really important. I had a great philosophical question, so talking about different entities commenting on matters of policy, whatever it might be. And you've got private practice we answer to our clients. You've got in-house you answer to your employer practice we answer to our clients. You've got in-house you answer to your employer. You've got the judiciary you answer to the law. And you've got the government you answer to the electorate.
Speaker 3:Who do you answer to? Who does academia represent? Well, we answer to students, first of all, when we teach right and I integrate research in my teaching right it's important to to do so because we also need to tell students that we don't just teach right, because they, most of them, think that you know, we go to class, we prepare classes and that's it. Well, that's just a part of it, because many academics also do research and I do not respond to, you know, to any, I mean in terms of commitments, when I'm commissioned to do a report, of course I welcome the invitation, but then I keep my academic freedom. So what I think academics can bring to the table is independent views right, exactly because we don't have clients right To respond to.
Speaker 3:We have the material we need to study. We have the law. We study the law. We read a huge amount of literature right To be able to form an opinion, and the more we read, the more solid our opinion will be and the more solid our report will be. That's what, again, I tell students when they need to do and write a dissertation right. The more you read in terms of literature, the more aware you will be of issues and more solid will your dissertation be? So, coming back to your, to your question, we don't respond to client. We don't respond to, apart from the books we read and the laws we we examine very clear.
Speaker 2:Thank you, um, I'll keep going, lee. Yeah, you keep going, you keep going, so I should just just take it back. Actually, this is more just out of curiosity. Personally, I've always been in private practice. I do quite a lot with Queen Mary, actually, in terms of lecturing and some other bits and pieces like that and, as you know, writing the old chapter which we'll come on to. But what do you miss about private practice? You never want to go back. Do you miss anything about private practice?
Speaker 3:No, I don't, I don't miss private practice, but I do recognize, acknowledge that working for 10 years, eight of these years in Milan, in these big law firms, in the IP department of these very well-known law firms, has really shaped my persona. First of all because ip is a living law, as I call it, is a law which is applied. I mean, and having worked in these law firms as a litigator, understanding the needs of clients, understanding how you really protect the IP asset as a company asset, right Now, it tells me a lot. It tells you a lot in transmitting this practical perspective to students. If you don't practice, you don't have this sensibility right. And therefore you may want to you, you may want to read as many books as possible, but you will never have the, the perspective, the practitioner perspective, which helps a lot students.
Speaker 3:For example, I cite many cases in my classes, very well-known cases which have been covered by media, and these of course creates interest, right. But of course I'm also able to tell students about the plaintiff's strategy right, how the plaintiff IP owner is capable of strategizing the plan to enforce one IP right instead of the other IP right, because that's what IP lawyers do they suggest IP owners. You know there are many IP rights that you could enforce here, but for these it may be convenient to enforce trademarks rather than copy it, because there are many IP interfaces right, and therefore I am able to explain students the perspective, the strategy of the defendant so plaintiff defendant and how the judge then decides. I mean this experience you can get it just by spending many hours daily in an office and you know, writing in a hurry an urgent complaint for obtaining a preliminary injunction. I mean, I really like the idea of having work there, but I don't miss it.
Speaker 4:So, enrico, can I sorry I'm going to cut in again, if that's all right? Um, it's not often. It's not often I get this excited on a podcast, is it? And I'll share my background with enrico, probably towards the end of the podcast. But I've got a teaching background as well, enrico. Um, so one of the things I was quite interested in you saying there is the is the why teachers, if we stick with that as a term, can become distant from practice. So and I know that guillem dabbles does a bit teaching. I know there's something that's quite he's quite passionate about. So how important is it for you, in the work that you do, to get it, to get in voices of the current practitioner, to get people like guillem in to do a little bit of teaching, to bring the practice into the classroom?
Speaker 3:absolutely. I regularly invite a practitioner to give guest lectures in my modules, uh, and students like it so much because, of course, now I am a bit distant from the practice, because I don't practice, uh, like I did years ago. And bringing a practitioner with fresh, you know, look at cases, not just lawyers, even IP assessors, value assessor or patent attorneys, and students love it and I think it's important. It's important to make them touch with their hands and with the real, the real practical perspective. And then and I did this with the William and I edit the books.
Speaker 3:I like editing books and, of course, inviting lawyers or patent attorneys to write chapters In the context of a book where there are mainly academics is important, right, because the book will acquire also a practitioner perspective. It's important to do to do that. Otherwise, you know, you have these academics in the ivory tower, not looking at the practical side of things. It's important, it's important to to make these wars meet Right and for the benefit of students in class and for the benefit of readers that end up buying the book and reading the chapters, yeah.
Speaker 2:Before we go on to the research topic element, which is really interesting, I want to just go back to that backstory point that you've just mentioned and you may not know you did this but what you were saying about bringing your perspective as a former IP litigator into looking at claims and analysing them For better or worse. I'm afraid you probably know that occasionally academia gets picked up as being perhaps a little unworldly. But I think what you're saying is academia can be as worldly as you want to bring that perspective, but it highlights something that's always interested me is that another area of the IP world that can sometimes be accused of being unworldly is, of course, the judiciary world. That can sometimes be accused of being about unworldly is, of course, the judiciary, and I think, again, a lot of our judges have said, yeah, we're not necessarily the most bugged in people to the day-to-day life, we're too busy judging. So you see these judgments coming out, uh, and they'll in my, in my world they'll be analyzing the motives of the applicant at the time of filing, about what they intended to mean, and in in the big litigations it'll all be the focus and the cases about the legal points.
Speaker 2:But so often actually what's going on is something you know. In the case of somebody drafting a patent application, they're doing it under enormous pressure and they haven't got time to get it right. And the case of litigation there's two CEOs who absolutely hate each other and will do anything to destroy the other people's company. So I hate each other and will do anything to destroy the other people's company. So it's. I think it's so important to bring that inside out. But doesn't it worry you that so much of our law is actually only analyzed from such a academic, perfectionist perspective and doesn't necessarily feed in some of the very human things that are sitting underneath it?
Speaker 3:But you're specifically asking about the judge's tasks of.
Speaker 2:Well, just more broadly, do you think sometimes it'd be more helpful to have that backstory so well, yes, the case went this way, but of course the CEO had hated the other CEO for 10 years. We should factor that into our analysis of the importance of the legal point, absolutely no.
Speaker 3:No, I agree, I agree with that. I agree, I agree with that. And also I am in support of judges to join academic platforms and we know that there are judges, not only in this country but also in other countries, that do that Right. And you, sometimes you see this in the literature, you see this and the judge X or judge Y, writing extrajudicially, believes that Right. I love writing extrajudicially because it's an academic opinion of a judge writing extrajudicially Right.
Speaker 3:Or when a judge goes to a conference and express an opinion, of course he or she expresses his own opinion, which should not have any bearing on the current case law. Should, because then it's still an opinion of a very influential IP person, right. But I think that they should keep on doing that. Of course they have their jobs, of course they need to resolve to write, to write rulings, but, um, getting their opinions on laws, for example, would be important. Of course it would.
Speaker 3:It would be a non-binding opinion because judges are subject to the law. They cannot really modify law, although in common law jurisdictions we know that you know started, the sizes and the present that does have, does have, you know, a weight. But getting the opinions of judges. It would be also interesting for a policy making perspective right, because, at the end of the day, they need to apply that law, they need to interpret that law and they have. Many of them have a lot of experience, decades of judging cases and, together with lawyers, together with patent attorneys, together with academics, they can and they should play a role right.
Speaker 2:Good. Thank you, agreed's. I have to say that this podcast has been great for talking to just about everybody actually and hopefully, you know, contributing a tiny bit to building that, that community and that cross-understanding and, um, lee seepers. But we've we had the meet the judges event, didn't we? Last year? That was a real success, actually fabulous, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's conversation cheeky. Yeah, it's funny, I think. I sometimes want. I think the english judicial system, the english legal system, almost requires the judge to be unworldly, um, funnily enough, which doesn't help. You know, you've got to have a jury. If you want to find out what humans think, um, you know you're gonna have an expert. If you want to hear what the scientists think, all, all you're allowed to learn. It's an interesting setup and maybe it creates its own artificial problems. But I was going to move on, if that's okay, just to. You touched already on the book about research topics there. Before we dive into that, let's hear about some of the areas that you've researched.
Speaker 3:You mentioned standards, but I think you've got quite a few areas of interest one of them is street art, graffiti and copyright, which is an area, in each area, I would say, where we see many cases coming set, a few cases coming coming out, and my aim in that specific regard is to raise awareness of the legal tools available to artists in this subculture, which is a very, you know, particular subculture, because they may paint illegally on the street and therefore you have there the problem of copywriting a work which has been created illegally and stuff.
Speaker 3:But there are cases coming out in america, in israel recently, a court of tel aviv and my research there has been very, very interesting because not only I did, I carried out legal research, but also ethnographic research.
Speaker 3:I interviewed many of these practitioners graffiti, street artists because I was curious to get their opinions on this world of copyright, and what I got is a very interesting picture which has ended up being a monograph, monograph which I published two years ago, whose title is Copyright in the Street an oral history of creative processes in the graffiti and street art subcultures. Right, and this has been a great, a great research. But then I continue. I am in contact with visual artists. I like talking to them, even studio artists, and I recently published with other two colleagues of mine, a paper on whether it is possible to take legal action, copyright enforcement action, while remaining anonymous, and that would be very relevant for those street artists to commit crime while painting right? Is it possible to stay anonymous at the same time, enforce enforce cooperating courts without disclosing the name, and it's an exciting area I am in.
Speaker 2:That's fascinating. I have a colleague who actually was representing, from a trademark perspective, quite a few street artists. Funnily enough, she was often talking about Brick Lane being a hub for London street street art and that really cool passage by um waterloo station as well, and if you ever walk down there, I mean the art is magnificent, it's genuinely magnificent. So in terms of sheer creative contribution, I think it deserves protection, as any, you know, any good innovation does, um. And yeah, I've never understood how you solve the problem of great art by people doing dodgy things.
Speaker 3:That seems to be one of the main stories of great art we have just a few decisions, because most of these cases are centered out of court, yeah, which is I'm happy for the artists because it means probably their rights are recognized extra, extra out of court. But from an academic perspective, I would love more you know decisions, judicial decisions, because it would, you know, clarify several, several issues. But I'm happy for artists. I mean, I'm a bit biased in my research in favor of artists, because I like the art, I like the way they embellish our town, which is usually gray, bleak, just with advertising messages.
Speaker 3:But no, street art is good because, especially unsanctioned street art leaves freedom to the artist. There is no gallery, there is no editor. You can express yourself as much as you can without any instructions being received, right, and that's why I love it and that's why my mission in the latest years has been to try to raise awareness on the legal tools which can be used by by these artists, the majority of which, you know, are not really knowledgeable. Sometimes they think that speaking with lawyers would not be helpful because it would be just a waste of time. They don't want to be associated with code, because they want to spend more time on their project, right, they know that lawyers may be quite expensive, and I published even a short photographic book in layman terms where I explain these things with a non-legal language and narrative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting because they create the street art for free for everyone to enjoy. So I guess the frustration comes when it's leveraged by third parties for money. So it's funny they can say I didn't want to make any money from it, but I resent you making money from something that I created. It's interesting isn't it. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Copyright is not a trigger to create. They create in absence of copyright incentives, right, yes, yes, yes, like many other creators, by the way. But then when someone appropriates, especially the big corporation, without asking permission, without sharing benefits, they get. Most of them get annoyed and they would like to take action, right, yeah. And one last thing about this topic I read somewhere that copyright would be useless to many of them because it's an anti-establishment form of creativity. Right, that's a very weak argument. It's a very weak point because, apart from the fact that there are many fine artists that are anti-establishment and nobody doubts about copyright, you know, for these forms of art, but then copyright would be the legal tool useful to keep the message anti-establishment with an injunction.
Speaker 3:If there is the big, big company in the fashion industry which appropriates your mural, well, artists are. Many of them might not be happy about being associated with the consumeristic message. The way to keep the message anti-establishment is exactly by relying on copyright law and ask the judge for an injunction, right? So copyright is so neutral and so versatile. Copyright is there. If you want to make money, of course, copyright is there to help you, right, with merchandising and stuff. But copyright can also be the tool to keep it real, as they say in the subculture.
Speaker 2:I can see that, and it's a bit like open source, isn't it? I mean, open source is all about freedom, but it's underpinned by IP law. Without IP law, you have no sanction to keep it open source and stop abuse.
Speaker 3:Copyright is allowed by copyright right. There would not be copy left without copyright.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And you, before the call, before the podcast, you mentioned a couple of a couple of other interests, but I think you said IP and food. Yes, I heard that. I heard that. I knew they'd like that. I knew they'd like that.
Speaker 3:I recently published a short monograph, together with a friend of mine who is a philosopher of food.
Speaker 4:We put together Aren't we all, enrico, aren't we all.
Speaker 3:We put together a legal expert cases mainly cases, case studies, 50 case studies about, for example, some geographical indication cases, geographical indication for food products, where the Court of Justice of the European Union has been quite too much protective, expanding the scope of protection of certain GIs. I just give you an example, a case where the Caso Manchego GI has been protected very, very broadly, even against cheese producers that used on the packaging not the name Caso Manchego, which is the word protected PDO, but even just the scenery of Castilla la mancha with the cervantes, donkey shot characters which reminded consumers about the castilla. So we have criticized these, these cases. Then we have looked at the trademark related cases where, or packaging-related cases where, you know, food companies have tried to protect the lookalike, not the trade dress right of the packaging. Then we have looked at recipes, whether recipes can be copyrighted or not.
Speaker 3:We have looked at, of course, biotech case, in case of uh M, m, g, m O's, and so we have ended up by concluding that you know, food, uh products and processes can be protected by all IP rights, different aspects, different assets. Of course trade, but it's product brands, brands um, unfair competition in and passing off protect the shape and the patents can protect the process of manufacturing the food, including biotechnological processes. Then you have plant variety rights, of course, protecting new strain, new, new plants. Then you have trade secrets, which has been used to protect some you know iconic product like the Coca-Cola formula or the Nutella formula. It's interesting to see how you know. And what is important is that we have merged the philosophical and the legal perspectives.
Speaker 2:So I know Lee has a question, but I've got one more question for you before I pass back to Lee, because this is really good fun. You said to your students, you told us that you tell them all about the good bits of IP and also the bad bits. And you've only said good bits so far.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the bad bits are evident for those who study this subject. First of all, we have gone through a terrible pandemic, global pandemic, right, and you know everybody interested in these issues have seen that an overprotection of patents covering not only vaccines, like the COVID-19 vaccine, but also other important technologies such as respirators, ventilators, refrigerators, where to keep the vaccine. Well, we have seen that IP rights have been also used in a way which has inevitably restricted availability of this technology, of this important medicine. This is a bad bit. I mean, if IP rights are used and exploited in this way, of course there are negative spillover effects in terms of access to important technologies such as medicines right. Then, of course, we have also a potential negative effect on access to education. When copyright is enforced in a way which limits the availability of cultural artifacts, right. And again, during the COVID pandemic, we have seen that many students had to receive a digital, you know, training material, teaching material and stuff. Again, copyright could be there to block or at least slow down the dissemination of important educational content Right.
Speaker 3:Then again, I have mentioned the GMOs debate. You know patents protecting debate. You know patents protecting potentially harmful GMOs or potentially harmful biotech process, harmful for human health, animal health and even the environment. Well, that's a problem because patents are incentives, right. So the big question here is should the availability of patents encourage innovators to invest in potentially harmful technologies or not? This is an issue which is well-radicated in Europe, where we have a morality exception in patent law right. This is less relevant in other areas, such as America and Japan, where there is no morality exception in patent law. But we should really wonder about the technology we want to incentivize, right, because IP rights, especially patents, incentivize innovation. But probably the government, in my opinion, needs to still be in control and to try to steer innovation towards socially acceptable, environmentally laws. Ip monopolies because we talk about monopolies can really, you know, lead us towards, you know, negative outcomes in terms of access to important technologies and encouragement in developing socially valuable you know, valuable innovation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had a lot of chat about during lockdown actually about the vaccine thing in particular and at the time we pointed to some good bits, I think, because there was some sharing and so on and so forth. But it is notable that they've all ended up suing each other and now it's over. There was a moment at least where everyone was getting on well, so yeah, so, lee Lee, over to you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, and I think this follows on, actually, gwilym. So, enrico, one of the other potential negative areas for IP. I guess it's negative if you look at it as being a sort of a negative action that happens, but positive in terms of the steps we can take to to mitigate and prevent. Prevent it is criminal activity and it doesn't necessarily come up in the sort of like the patent world and perhaps not so much in the trademark world. But we know that there's likely to be probably middle of this year, towards the sort of latter half of this year, uh, a major consultation on designs, um, particularly unregistered designs. There will be within that, voices that will be calling in much the same way as they called for criminal sanctions when we last did a big review of designs, which I think was about 2014. Yeah, there will be voices calling for criminal sanctions in relation to unregistered designs. Do you have a view and opinion on criminal sanctions and their role, their place, in the IP world?
Speaker 3:Well, article 61 of the TRIPS Agreement obliges countries to make available criminal sanctions against infringers who do infringe on a commercial scale right, and the interpretation of commercial scale may vary from country to country, as a WTO court said in 2009 in the China-US case, but of course, we know that there are criminal organizations, right, which exploit counterfeiting and piracy, right.
Speaker 3:We know that, yeah, and probably everybody agrees that for such kind of infringers, criminal sanctions are appropriate right. Of course, they are less appropriate when it comes to non-criminal organization. When it comes to non-criminal organization, when it comes to entrepreneurs, corporations which believe to be on the right side of the law, right, and indeed, in criminal law, one of the requirement, as we all know, is the mens rea right, the subjective element, and therefore criminal sanctions should be avoided for less serious cases of infringements being just reserved for serious activities infringing activities on a commercial scale, especially organized crime. And indeed, if you look at the case law, most case law is a civil proceedings right. We don't have many cases apart from, you know, street vendors, who you know, who sell fake Louis Vuitton bags right, but I do believe that it should be the last resort right, especially limited in very serious cases of crime so I mean, let me play that back to you.
Speaker 4:I think I think what I heard there is. This is more sophisticated than good against bad, right against wrong. Um, yeah, there are nuances in here. You can, you can. You can infringe without intending to infringe, and should that result in a criminal conviction, um, yeah, in in a. So I'm taken back to a.
Speaker 4:It was very early in my time, let's say. I've been asleep since 2014 and my background, enrico is in sort of plumbing, civil engineering that that world and I remember being at a super event where the case was being made for criminalising. It wasn't SEPA making this case, but the case was being made for criminalising design infringement. And the example of the design that was given was a raw iron candlestick. And the barrister who was making the case said look, this was clearly designed by X, it's been infringed by Y and it was a multinational company. There's clearly an infringement here. Effectively, the chief exec of this national company should go to jail for this infringement.
Speaker 4:And I remember I stood my hand up and I said I'm a wee bit confused here because you know, at that time I would have been in my late 40s and I made that candlestick as a plumbing apprentice when I was 17. That's, you was 17. That's you know that's not that person's design from 10 years ago, that's been around forever, and that's that cuts to the kind of nub of this, really, doesn't it? It's demonstrating where that original thought, that original design, came from and whether that infringement was um was therefore valid or not. Yeah, so have I got that right?
Speaker 3:yeah, but it was in a uak unregistered design, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, which does not protect the ornamental theaters. It protects not a kind of internal characteristics, not internal fear. So in that case, how I mean, it's really difficult to prove the subjective element right, the willingness to commit a crime, right, especially if it's a reseller or a retailer, right, the last you know ring which the business to consumer, let's say, because one thing is the producer right, the producer probably has more chances of being condemned, criminally condemned, because you know, if you produce a clearly infringing product on a commercial scale, but different will be the position of the retailer, yeah, yeah, I think one of the I know that one of the concerns has always been yes, we can identify the extremes of the behavior, but how do you?
Speaker 2:let's not let's not solve this now, but it's all about how do you identify it in such a way that you know that you're clear of it If you are, if you want to call it a kind of a civil infringer or a criminal infringer. And I know that one of the concerns is you can't advise your client to take a one percent risk if the sanction is criminal. So I think this is always the problem. Let's not solve that now. I remember that being part of the debate. Um, I was going to quickly get a plug in for the book. Yeah that's okay.
Speaker 2:Probably because I wrote a chapter of it, but mostly for Enrico's benefit.
Speaker 3:Please tell us about your research topics book, I mean together with my friend and now I'm ashamed of we have been asked by I got to to edit a book on the future research paths in patent law. So together we know and we have identified the several areas Right when we think that could be development as far as well let's put it this way where research is basically needed Right way, where research is basically needed right, and that's why we had, for example, we had the chapters covering the access to medicine, the access to medicines and patent protection interface with, of course, the, the trips waiver and with all this debate about availability of vaccines. Then we have an entire section dedicated focusing on the ict, the ict and the internet of things, with william writing about interfaces right and professor jorge contraras writing about interfaces right and Professor Jorge Contreras writing about the new research paths, the needed research paths in standard essential patents. Myself, together with my co-author, dr Magali Contardi, we wrote about the landscape of patent tools pools in the telecommunication sector and then other chapters on gen editing patents by Professor Duncan Matthews, and now I'm my co-editor writing about patentability of AI applications, which is a very burning issue now, in this moment, and, as I said, the aim has been to highlight future research paths, because what we want to do is to spur, to encourage further research.
Speaker 3:So our aim has been to try to indicate, to show early career researchers or late career researchers, it doesn't matter, and indeed the book contributors are both established academics and early career researchers, which is important in my opinion, to also give chances to young researchers right To, in this case, to try to indicate the future of research. So, and especially to try again to influence the policy making debate. Right, and we go back to the, not to the, to the topic which with which we started this, this conversation. We want to, we wanted to offer our expertise to readers, and our readership aims at being quite, quite wide right lawyers, patra turners, policymakers and students. These are part of our readership, let's say.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed my chapter, especially when I realized that it was a book on setting research topics. I didn't have to have any of the answers, so the first time I read it you sent it back and said what's that? And so I realized I could just say. Another interesting thing I have no answer to is the following it became really interesting and, Lee, my chapter is on interfaces and it became the realization that if you control the gateway, you actually control everything beyond the gateway. The realization that if you control the gateway, you actually control everything beyond the gateway. So actually owning the ip and interface gives you disproportionate control over stuff beyond that it's really interesting.
Speaker 2:So once I got into it I it rolled. I mean it just became a series of questions and crossovers with repair and spare parts and all these other you know must fit and must match. All these other topics of IP came in. It was really interesting to get into. I was grateful for the steer that I got from Enrico.
Speaker 3:I know him actually on that and they are under-researched, these topics.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some basic economic questions about should you be able to repair stuff, and there's some case law on that and all kinds of stuff in the US.
Speaker 3:There's a right to repair movement in the States now all kinds of things. It's fascinating, I must say, that the circular economy and the right to repair now, as they started researching it, I think last year, two years ago but, for example, I haven't seen many papers about the must fit and must match exemption in design law, for example. Yeah, yeah, I haven't seen many papers. So that's that's our aim to to, to spur, to encourage further, further research and we hope to have shown the right paths.
Speaker 4:So, gwilym, I have a job on the podcast, don't I? And that's to keep us to time, and I, and? And I did say to Enrico right at the start of this that we'll aim for about 40 minutes, and I failed miserably because we're, because we're just coming up to the hour, which I think just goes to show what an engaging guest you've been, enrico. These podcasts always work best, but they just become a conversation and it feels like you're in the pub having it, having a kind of natter with old friends. That that's. That's exactly how this felt. Um, so I I have the job of closing down the podcast, which I'll try and do, but before I do that, is there anything that you've not talked about that you'd like to quickly reference? Are there any things that you wanted to particularly come on and get across, or do you think you've, um, do you think you've exhausted your repertoire?
Speaker 3:well, I mean, just let me conclude with the fact that I, I, I, I, I really love giving classes, lectures, talks, not just in this country, but I travel a lot and crossing borders. Teaching classes of ip in so diverse countries with so different ethnic, religious backgrounds has been something which has made me the person I am and more solid, more discerning of diversity and stuff, and it's incredible to see how students, especially students, young students, are so happy to listen to me and I try to integrate, let's say, the global South perspective, the developing countries perspective, in all my teaching when I am in our countries, let's say in the UK. I think this is it's tiring, because traveling, of course, is tiring. I have a family and therefore it's not easy, but I can still do it because I am, I want to do it, because I am enthusiastic and it never stops enriching me so I can understand why your students are so engaged, because I could listen to you forever.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but we don't have that luxury, gwilym. So what happens at the end, enrico, is that either Gwilym or I try and close the podcast with a question that's maybe a little bit tangential. It will be something about something we've talked about that won't necessarily be entirely relevant. So I've got one Gwilym, but it's sort of in two parts. Can I do a two-part?
Speaker 3:close-up.
Speaker 4:So the way this works, enrica, is, I'm going to ask Gwilym, I'll then ask you, and then Gwilym will kind of bounce it back on me. So so here's my question, and I sort of indicated it earlier. So I'm I'm a teacher, I'm an academic by background, I've taught in FE, I've taught in higher education. Gwilym's done a fair bit of teaching. We know that you are clearly, um, an expert teacher. So, guillem, two part question, right, what's the oddest thing, kind of perhaps most removed from your professional life that you've ever taught anybody, and also, who was your best teacher?
Speaker 2:oh, I can thank you. I can do both this. So, um, the first one actually for SIPA we saw a lot of delegations from China and we have one and I love is taking the visitors for British pub lunch, because I think it's a really cool traditional thing to do and they love it. It turned out to be really popular, except once I realised that the trick was to put the food in the middle to show it out, because it was really quite alien to somebody coming from Chinese second city to a London pub. So we've resolved all that. But we went to one pub and they had got our order wrong. So they said it's me 40 minutes for the food to come and that was embarrassing for us. But actually that made it embarrassing for the guests, because they don't want to see us embarrassed. So I had to pretend that it was on purpose so that I could provide a lecture on the history of the pub about which I knew absolutely nothing. So then I had to extemporise it. I got to go at half an hour of the history of the pub. It was on Fleet Street. I mentioned Charles Dickens about 15 times basically, but otherwise pretty much made it up. So I was quite proud of that.
Speaker 2:Second question was my best teacher, your best teacher? Yeah, my favorite teacher, fair point. Uh, it was, um, I did a level history and my history teacher was mr chris force, who made it to the semi-finals, or maybe even the finals of masterminds a few years ago. Because he's a he's just a huge character and he's a force of nature. He's still with us. He's just a huge character and he's a force of nature. He's brilliant.
Speaker 2:And I remember he once did the oh, I forget the name the Yalta, when Stalin, churchill and Roosevelt met in the late mid-40s to kind of finish the war. But when he did it he would jump on the desk and do an impression of each of the three of them presenting their position and it was absolutely magnificent. I mean he couldn't do any of the three of them presenting their position and it was absolutely magnificent. I mean you couldn't do any of the accents. He did a decent Winston Churchill, but his Russian and American were really dodgy. But he absolutely brought it to life and it's captivating, it's fantastic. That was a good teacher there you go that's lovely.
Speaker 4:I really enjoyed listening to you that time. Not always so.
Speaker 3:So, enrico, then the same two-part for you, perhaps the strangest thing you found yourself teaching, and maybe your favorite teacher, the person who influenced you the most, whoever it might be missions of the war, intellectual property training missions of the yp, the wipo, in developing countries, africa, asia and one of these countries recently, a few months ago, a colleague of mine collapsed while while, while teaching, while training, probably because the air conditioning was not working. Then we really got scared and that was a very bad moment but luckily luckily, she then recovered quite quickly. In a few hours she was OK, but for a few minutes I was really scared. You know, that's another. That's maybe a negative aspect of, you know, teaching in, in, in places where you know the it's very warm, the infrastructure is not, as let's say, comfortable like our nice offices in London and stuff, but it's part of the game, I would say right, and therefore I take it as a part of it.
Speaker 3:And the second question I think that the person who had more influence in me, the teacher, is my first IP mentor who actually convinced me, I mean pushed me, to specialize in this sector, in the IP, and it is. He's a professor, marco Ricolfi, at the University of Turin. He was. He has been directing the first WIPO master in Cure in Italy for many years and it was him that gave me the idea of applying for this WIPO master in 2025 ago, and it changed my life, because now I'm talking about IP law with you and probably I'm doing that because of that person who has shaped my life. Ah, lovely, lovely, oh that's two lovely answers.
Speaker 4:I've really enjoyed listening to both of you, so we'll stop it there, shall we?
Speaker 2:no, let's hear what you've got to say.
Speaker 4:Lee, about a your most unlikely teaching experience, and be your favorite teacher you know, I didn't get the first part of this question much thought, william, it was such a good question I didn't actually think about it. So I've been thinking about it and, yeah, I know I should have um, so I've been, I've been thinking about it as I've been going along and it's, I think it. I think the two are related for me, so that when I finished, so I was a plumbing apprentice, enrico, so I did that and was pretty good at it and fairly early on got offered the opportunity to go on and do a higher national diploma in building civil engineering. So started that, and so I find myself doing this civil engineering course and one evening one of the lecturers doesn't turn up, so similar sort of thing doesn't turn up, and that evening the lecture is about mechanical services, so plumbing in gas, essentially. And I remember the head of the um hnd department coming in, coming over to me and saying you're a plumber, can you teach the class this evening? So it was so my, so the subject was familiar to me? Yeah, but it was, it was more the context. So never, ever, sort of, have I stood up in front of a bunch of people that were effectively my peers and had to try and teach them something without any prep, but it was. It was that that encouraged me to then think about becoming a teacher. So that was a sort of like the spur then to. And I never, ever did complete that HND because I went off to do teacher training instead.
Speaker 4:And then that person was also so the head of that department, guy called Malcolm Peake, was also probably the most so he. He used to teach, um, so, building, uh, civil engineering, surveying, and I was enthralled. He was the most captivating teacher. He was really enthralling. So he didn't just give me that kind of first break in teaching by chucking me in at the deep end, but also was a role model for me.
Speaker 4:And bizarrely, gwilym, I was talking about him Saturday in the pub because we had a bit of a conversation about who our favourite teachers were. And then I go to and I've not seen him for over 20 years and I'm in next looking for a nice shirt, jacket, combo for a meal we've got tomorrow evening, um, and and I bump into him. So quite, quite bizarrely, talking about the day before, but bump into him, we have a little shake hands combo and he says to me he said this is really weird. He said I was only telling someone in the pub yesterday that story about when I dropped you in on that, on that teaching. So how bizarre that we've both been talking about one another in a pub the day before and then we bumped into each other in next. So, um, yeah, that's that's mine. I didn't, I didn't know I was gonna say that until I started telling that story. Well, I'm glad you did, enrico, it's been absolutely gorgeous having you on the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank, thank you for coming on for me as well. It's been a very pleasant conversation. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4:Really enjoyed it. Yeah, you were quite tolerable this time too, I do.
Speaker 2:I can you know? You were great. You were great, you were great.
Speaker 3:So you're going to, you're going to disseminate the podcast some, some platform.
Speaker 4:I'll tell you all about that in a moment. I'll tell you all about that in a moment, so let me just turn the podcast off, as it were. So thanks for coming on, enrico, see you on the next one. And, listeners, if you've enjoyed this podcast and there's no reason why you shouldn't because this has been so, so good then leave a review on the podcasting platform of your choice and other people will find us. Thanks, both thank you.
Speaker 1:Other people will find us. Thanks both. Thank you. We'll see you next time.