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
INTA San Diego Pubcast Special with... Vicki Salmon
To start off our San Diego Pubcast special, Lee and Gwilym sit down with Vicki Salmon. Vicki never planned on becoming a patent attorney. While preparing for a career as an accountant after studying natural sciences at Cambridge, a chance conversation with a neighbor who happened to be a High Court judge changed everything. "I think you should have a look at patents," he suggested, introducing her to the profession that would become her life's work.
And so did you think, maybe that did you find that you tried the patent attorney classic prep and pros thing. Then you tried the solicitor thing and you thought I like the solicitor thing a bit more, or If you really want the truth. Yes, I do. Of course we do. You can't handle the truth.
Speaker 2: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 Attorneys.
Speaker 4:So, gwendolyn, we've moved away from the conference centre at Inter and we're in an Irish pub in. Gaslamp Street.
Speaker 2:It's very cool. Fifth Avenue, fifth Street. You're on Fifth Street in the Gaslamp District, so we've brought Fifth Avenue, fifth Street.
Speaker 4:You're on Fifth Street in the Gaslamp District, so we've brought the guest in already, which is something we don't normally do this early in the Bants.
Speaker 1:but True, true, but they have the geographical knowledge that we like yeah, yeah, yeah, no, exactly right yeah. I'm fascinated by ketchup guy outside. This isn't sat at the table and all he's got is a plate of ketchup that he's put on his entire bottle of ketchup plate and has just secured a new bottle of ketchup, a new full bottle of ketchup.
Speaker 4:Is that a new one? Yeah?
Speaker 1:What's he going to do with it? I don't know.
Speaker 4:I'm fascinated by that, and yesterday we had Duck Bike.
Speaker 1:Guy.
Speaker 4:Yeah, to be fair, I think that's all bikes.
Speaker 1:He was going past that duck protest Duck protest. Quacking every time he went past.
Speaker 4:It was quite funny.
Speaker 1:What's he doing with the ketchup? Just ignore, let's focus on the.
Speaker 4:Just ignore ketchup guys. Yeah Okay, podcast, podcast. Yeah, right, so we're in a pub, irish pub, and not that that matters, but that will help people understand why there's a bit of Irish music in the background. And we've got a really special guest with us today Super special, super special Specialist, as special as a special guest can possibly be.
Speaker 1:We have Vicky Salmon, council member and SIPA alumni Soul of SIPA, soul of SIPA, soul of SIPA Soul of SIPA.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you two are so full of it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we are, sadly, we are hey. Vicky, welcome to. Yeah, we are, sadly, we are hey.
Speaker 2:Vicky. Welcome to the podcast, hi Lou. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4:Ah, it's so good, so good to have you on. So most people know you, obviously, but few people will know backstory and stuff like that. So can you regale us with how you come to be where you are?
Speaker 2:Entirely by accident. Nobody gets anywhere. They intend to be on purpose. It's just you just keep turning corners and being unable to say no oh, yeah, and I think one needs to learn how to say no, and I haven't found that one out yet.
Speaker 4:Okay, yeah, fair enough, fair enough. So why the law? Why ip?
Speaker 2:well, I, I was going to be an accountant, it's funny to understand that I was going to be an accountant and then a couple of things happened just while I was sorting out careers from university. I was a natural scientist at Cambridge and one uncle said you've done all this science, why do you want to leave it behind and do finance? And then a neighbor who happened to be a high court judge said I think you should have a look at patents. I wouldn't recommend the patent bar, but being a patent attorney is nice. Come and meet my friend, mr Stanley Dane. So I duly went along and met Mr Dane and then met some other people, including Nigel Franklin at Forrester Ketley many years ago, and Nigel was so enthusiastic about patents and I thought do you know what, if I can be an accountant anytime, but actually it's quite tricky getting into the patent profession and making a go of it. So if I don't have a go now, I'll never get another opportunity.
Speaker 2:So I took the opportunity and joined New Bernalus and I was there for about five years and waiting for my European exam results, having got my British ones. It was am I in the right job? I want to make a positive decision to stay here and the next thing I knew I had a job offer from Stevenson Harwood to re-qualify as a lawyer. So I moved there, qualified as a lawyer then, um Ludie Lochner, who'd been in charge of the department, had left, tibor had joined, so I was working with the great Tibor Gold and Nick Headley.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we've had Tibor on a podcast.
Speaker 2:And then I went from there to Eversheds, was there for a while, then, just before the Clementi reforms kicked in, I moved back into Pat Natoni practice and about three and a half years ago we set up the new practice, impact IP. So we've been going for just over three and a half years and I love it.
Speaker 4:So you're not unique, but you're Two years. Okay, you are unique but you are one of the few that have that sort of mix of both being a patent attorney and solicitor. What do you see yourself as first and foremost, or do you? Do you not even look at it that way?
Speaker 2:I. I look at it as having that mixed bag, because actually it's really helpful to have both skills together yeah and um and therefore to be um able to do, to look at both the commercial side and the practice side. So I think I'm probably a solicitor more than a patent attorney yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to draft patents or do the main arguments at the EPO. If you've got complicated oral proceedings I'll probably bring my litigation skills in, but most of it I've got better skilled colleagues to do that part and I'll do the commercial and the portfolio management and the trademarks and things like that.
Speaker 4:Graham, did you never think about being a solicitor?
Speaker 1:I didn't really know what I was getting into when I started seeing how much other law there was on top of IP. It just got a bit scary generally. Hence the uniqueness of people like Vicky actually, and that's a question I had. So that means you're very much a team player, so you'll work with I didn't realize you don't do the drafting and stuff, but so you'll work with your drafters.
Speaker 2:I'll work with my drafters, yeah, so we we tend to operate on a fairly team basis anyway. So you'll have the partners overseeing and the attorneys doing the work, or maybe the trainees mucking in too and just trying to get the work done at the right level, with the that partner oversight and extra bit coming in where you need it so did you think maybe that did you find that you tried the patent attorney classic prep and pros thing.
Speaker 1:Then you tried this thing and you thought I like this to think a bit more. Or if you really want the truth, yes, I do, of course we do. You can't handle the truth.
Speaker 2:Though drafting patent claims four or five years into the profession was absolutely terrifying, the idea that somehow I had to come up with this ideal language which was going to catch unseen infringements in 15 years' time, while still being novel over things I'd never heard of it, was way too scary.
Speaker 1:I did put up my own job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but maybe I just was too much of a not in the quite the right job at the right time and I think other people have better technology skills and are better able to do that. And I would prefer someone gave me a piece of paper where they'd already written down the claims and then I'll critique it and go well, I think we could just do that, and I would prefer someone gave me a piece of paper where they'd already written down, yeah, the claims and then I'll critique it and go well, I think we could just do this and it'll be a bit better if we do that. But that blank sheet of paper is not really my skill forte, so I take my hat off to the drafting patent attorneys so setting up your own practice, yeah that's scary, isn't it?
Speaker 2:if I had done it entirely of my own. Yes, it would be very, very scary, but I had a business partner and we had a good client base and some attorneys to come into the practice and the admin part of setting up the practice. That was kind of easy because while we'd been in practice in the previous firm all the law changes had happened so I'd done all the LLP applications. Filling all the documents in for IPREG was just kind of just get on with it really and I think the legal training helped. So I think what we can put back into the Small Business Practice Committee to help them and help new people set up their practices is just really important.
Speaker 4:So part of your story, though, is being this SIPA, through and through council member volunteer extraordinaire. Can you remember when you joined council?
Speaker 2:no, I can't remember which year I joined council. I'm hoping you're going to be able to dig that out for me.
Speaker 4:I'll try my best, but some of some of the SIPA archives are produced on archaic software like wordStar and stuff like that and no longer readable by any programme.
Speaker 1:WordStar. I love WordStar, who recruited you Tybalt yeah, same as me, tybalt Gold he recruited me to council.
Speaker 2:At the time I'd started out in the uniformals. My first year with New Bernalis had been in their Bristol office. Then I came up to London and started attending lectures. As opposed to listening to them on tape, I don't know if anybody remembers that stuff?
Speaker 4:I've heard the story that they were ferried around the country in audio cassette.
Speaker 2:They were, and it took ages because people used to stack them up before they passed them on. So when it eventually reached a point where you could actually just download them and you didn't get them three years too late.
Speaker 4:Oh the good old days. How did?
Speaker 2:they do that. How did they get the tapes around? You just put them in an envelope and you posted them to the next person on the list.
Speaker 1:I was going to be a doe who actually listened and fired that one, yeah, listened, so they were the only legal use ever, tape to tape, the only legal use ever found, possibly Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And then I became the informal's treasurer at a time when they were taking quite money in for running the tutorials, yeah, yeah, Then somebody else wanted to take over as treasurer. So I then took over the tutorials and I ran them for two or three years, passed them on, and while I was doing that Bob Farwell recruited me to the education committee. So by the time I was working with Tibor at Stevenson Harwood I was already on Edcom as an informals rep, and then, I suppose in my own right, because I must have qualified by then. And then he said I think you should stand for council. So Bruce Alexander then got me to take over the social and program committee and with it Congress. I went oh well, Bruce, you could run Congress on your own. I can't, I need a committee.
Speaker 2:So we set up the Congress Steering Committee in order to get input from across the profession as to what would be a good subject and how to get people in from all sorts of jurisdictions.
Speaker 1:Were you involved in Congress from the very outset?
Speaker 2:No, bruce had run it entirely on his own from the very beginning. I thought it was Tibble that started. It was it, was it not? Well, maybe I've got that wrong no, no, I was just wondering.
Speaker 1:I can imagine bruce then ran it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay interesting so I I don't know what it was before bruce ran it, but I then took it on and ran it for a few years and then moved it on to others, which was a great relief.
Speaker 4:I've been knocking around seeper for 13 years and you've been a council stalwart and all of that time. Yeah, as Gwilym has as well yeah, she used to turn up though. Yeah, to be fair, you didn't used to turn up much in in the early days. You're pretty good now. You're pretty good now what's it been like being a council member? You've seen, I mean, your roles changed over time. In terms of your professional role, uh, you've seen council change over that time.
Speaker 2:I think, because I spent quite a lot of time in a solicitor's firm, being part of council became really important to me and kind of almost part of my identity in a way yeah, I get that.
Speaker 2:And I think it's because in a solicitor's firm, to stay connected to being a patent attorney and to the law changes and everything else, just coming to council and getting the papers, the information you get it's just been phenomenal just to keep me abreast of things and enable me to do my job, because at one point at Eversheds they ran a job to critique a draft patent law which was coming in for another country and I wouldn't have been able to do it had I not been, or with all the education I got through being on council and understanding about lobbying and things.
Speaker 4:That's really interesting, isn't it? Because what you're talking about there is council not just being a role where you are giving something to SEPA in terms of its governance and its oversight and its control, but where you get back in terms of your own professional development.
Speaker 2:I've always felt I got back as well. So I think that's why I've always been able to carry on doing things, because I've always felt I got something out of it as well yeah, you don't realize how much as well, do you?
Speaker 1:you? Know all the acronyms, you know yeah, who does what and who to talk to, and all these things that I think if you don't sit on council one and maybe one of the committees, it's quite surprising. I remember joining PATCOM and being amazed. I just thought what are these acronyms, what are all these organizations? What are we up to here? As I loved it the moment I got involved.
Speaker 2:I love that engagement and the information you get yeah, I think the patents committee has been a really important committee to be part of, and particularly because they always go through the what's coming up in uk law and then european law and then on the international scene and particularly what's happening in the US and where you want to lobby and deal with things that are changing. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know, but after doing social and programme, I then took over the litigation committee when Michael Harrison became president and I then realised, looking back, that I'd been on that committee, sharing it, for 13 years. No-one should be allowed to do that many years.
Speaker 4:Oh, can I leave now yeah.
Speaker 2:No, you can't leave, but I don't think you should chair a committee for that long. I think we ought to move them on a little bit more regularly. But it took me. I went through all the UPC lobbying and the drafting and what we could change and what we couldn't change, which was all very interesting.
Speaker 2:And in the middle middle of this, we were sitting in a council meeting looking at the legal services act, for some reason, which I hadn't been paying proper attention to, and I flipped over and went hold on, they've revoked our rights to represent in court. Oh, my goodness, we're in a transitional period. We need a new regime before this transitional period ends. So I went down to IPREG and they went oh, I don't think they've got capacity for that. And I went back to the office where one of my partners was an IPREG council member, a board member, and he went. I didn't know that needed to be done. I know how to do it and I went well, this needs to be done and I don't know how to do it. So we got a consultation process and a new set of regulations.
Speaker 1:It's also an indication of how having experts involved in this on the council and everything can make it that you can spot things that other people wouldn't spot, which is really important. Actually A bit like CPTPP. A bit like CPTPP.
Speaker 4:But you need that diversity of experience and vision and understanding, don't you so? For me, in terms of where we are now with SEPA Council, that's one of the great things about it is we've got a real richness in diversity on Council, and it does mean that often we spot stuff probably far more quickly than we might have done in the past. So you've seen SEPA change quite a lot. I'm hoping mainly for the better. I'm not trying to blow a trumpet here, but you know when I started, we had a tiny, tiny office staff.
Speaker 2:I think there was Marion and Mick and Di Burridge and maybe one or two others, and now we've and therefore quite a lot had to be done by the membership. Yeah, and I think we have grown and developed the Institute enormously. I think there's much more support, much more is done by a membership team which is brilliant because it just means there's more continuity.
Speaker 2:You don't have to have members all the time trying to decide what to do next and finding that time. But I also think that all the lobbying that's happened recently in the cctpp has just helped us to get to a more professional place and to be more aware of our own influence and what we can achieve when we set out to do things, and I think that's a great step forward but having grown the organization.
Speaker 4:So we now have 15, 16 staff, 27 committees, council meeting monthly, when you've which, for an organisation of super membership size, is a fair effort. It's a decent sized business. That means that you need to focus on governance.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, you're, good.
Speaker 2:This is way too heavy. How smooth was that.
Speaker 4:Are you going to IGC? I'm going to Internal Governance Committee, IGC. Can I make? A comment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just quickly.
Speaker 1:Because I think what's interesting is that the profession's grown, yeah, and SEPA's grown, and SEPA can grow because the profession's bigger, so the funds are there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a virtuous circle. I can out who's driving it. I know in the end the profession is bringing the work in to make it happen. But if it weren't for SEPA, I don't think we'd be in such a strong position. So the growth of the organisation is, I think, part of it's because it's done such a good job for the profession.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's the profession doing a good job for itself. It's the volunteers coming in to give their time on council and give their time on committees because it matters to their firms and it matters to other firms and I think we're really generous with each other in terms of how we support each other in a profession and how we get together.
Speaker 2:We've always had strong education. You know the old transactions of the institute and the educational lectures that used to be given and moving that into a webinar base and on. I think that we continue to look at what are likely to be existential threats to our profession as a whole, with all of us feeding into it.
Speaker 4:You know you talk to the managing partners, you talk to the heads of department and how much worthwhile it is for people to put into that lobbying process so that we're looking after each other and we're looking after ourselves yeah, so you would have heard me say this a number of times and I know in that sense it's anecdotal, but I I obviously exist in a network of chief execs of other membership associations and I know so that for them there are there are sort of like three hardy perennials when it comes to running an association recruitment yeah well, it's not something we sleep over, because we're an industry, an ecosystem whereby it's understood that if you come into the system, you become a member of CP, you become a student member of CIPA.
Speaker 4:it's sort of like ingrained in that way. Retention so we retain about 97.3%, 4% of members each year and we only really lose them because they take retirement and decide to not continue their membership. Very few actually do that, or they die and patent attorneys live to a ripe old age is my experience. And then membership engagement and I've told you often that you know most of my peers would give an arm or a leg for the sort of membership engagement. We have 27 committees, 200, 300 people regularly giving their time to, to see to in that way, and I've always thought that's quite extraordinary and you're an example of that, particularly on internal governance, where you know maybe not.
Speaker 1:I'm so tempted to distract you again from the igc thing. I'm not going to. No, I'm not tempted to distract you again from the IGC thing. Go on then. No, I'm not going to no.
Speaker 4:No, please do, because you've distracted me already. Let's do IGC.
Speaker 1:No, you've distracted me, I was actually going to chuck in one more. Sorry, Nick, no, go on. One of the comments there is that again, that engagement is because we know that the Seeker's doing good things and that virtual circle continues.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we get stuff done. So I can only this isn't a podcast about me, but I can only get stuff done because I've got around me a bunch of really engaged I want to say senior members, but not in the sort of sense that they are getting on in years.
Speaker 4:Some of us are but, yeah, but are at the top of their game. Yeah, so I can only get done what I get done because of that volunteer infrastructure around me, and that's again something else that any of my, the people that I work with in that, in that membership space, would um give anything for. Uh, what we have, what we have, is amazing. You evidence that in the work that you do on internal governance. So why? Why was igc something that you gravitated towards? Because it's Because it's not a natural. Most patent attorneys probably aren't at home doing that kind of really heavy lifting around governance, are they?
Speaker 2:We used to have a Finance and House Committee. We did yeah. And somebody decided that it should be reinvented as an Internal Governance Committee. Oh, that was you, was it, that was me? Yeah. And at the time that things were being put forward, you asked for various members of council to put themselves up for election, and I looked at what was on offer and I actually wanted to learn about governance.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I looked at the list of skills you wanted and I felt these are the ones I can offer and take, but these are the ones I don't have and I would like to acquire, Like to develop.
Speaker 4:yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And actually governance was one of the ones I wanted to acquire, and we did have some early governance training, but it's, I think, it's time to redo that um, and we've been working towards that now so that we've have started some new governance it's been really good I've done my sessions.
Speaker 1:It's really, she's really great, isn't she?
Speaker 2:she really gets you to think about things.
Speaker 1:I take your point there about also, because we've got governance considerations in our firm. I feel like I know a decent amount, but I've learned from IGC and I've learned from that training as well, actually and brought stuff back, so it's really useful.
Speaker 2:And I think that we'll hopefully, once the governance training is finished for IGC, it'll be offered to council and to committee chairs. But there might be wider demand. Let's council and to committee chairs, but there might be wider demand. Let's see if actually firms would like some more governance training for themselves in terms of how they manage things.
Speaker 4:It was obvious to me when I did training we did it together, becky it was obvious to me there was an absolute weed across to governing c bank, governing any firm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are core principles around good governance to stand up yeah, yeah, and I think that, because I trained as a solicitor, there was a time post-qualification, I had to do a more advanced legal course and that was about how do you look at risk, how do you deal with insurance, where are you going with, um, all sorts of things which are hitting us now, like sanctions regulation. Yeah, how do you run a business properly, how do you manage your employees? And I think there's all sorts of things about running a business which, historically, we might have just fallen into by mistake, but I think a little bit more governance would never go amiss in terms of how you run an organisation.
Speaker 4:Can I ask you a really unfair question?
Speaker 4:You're going to ask it anyway, because I love the story that you've told. I love the way you described the way that you came into council in those early days quite early in your career actually and how you've kept that fresh throughout your time on council. So someone maybe where you were when you first came onto council might be looking at council thinking well, it's not for me, I'm early in my career, I need to be fee earning, I need, I need to be doing this, I need to be doing that. What would you say to them to encourage them to at least think about it?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'd say start with a committee. I'd actually say start with a committee. There's going to be something that you're passionate about, somewhere. You would like to volunteer, something that you care about. I mean, when I was running social and programme committee, people came along and said I think we would really like to have I don't know a dragon boat race. And I went great. Well, if you'd like a dragon boat race, you clearly know what you want. You go organise it, because we are an organisation of volunteers.
Speaker 2:So you need someone to say I'd like to get this done. You don't always need permission, you need sensible financial planning around it. So my view has frequently been okay, I've been around long enough. If I want something to happen, I'll make it happen. Beg for forgiveness afterwards, yeah, so if there's something you care about you know you really want to know about computer law, or you want to get involved in dei, or you you want to learn about some other things just find the committee that is doing what you want to do, or come and tell us we need a new committee, and then you can do what you care about. I think the next trick is to learn when to say no. I haven't always known when to say no to you, lee, because when I finished doing LitCom you said I should do Education Committee. We got it all going, but it's much better with Debbie. You know she's the right person to do that now.
Speaker 1:You're quite convincing. You are convincing. That'll be why I'm on sec. I think yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So sometimes it's learning when to say no, so that you do what you can do. But I think if you've done some committees or you're just interested in being on council, then I think you should come, stand up, come and find out what it's about. Come and talk to a council member about what to do. You don't need to wait to be invited. I think people who want to contribute should be able to come forward, because that helps the diversity. We won't see diversity when we don't come across it, and so you can't always invite people in and get that huge diversity. I think it helps when people feel confident to say actually.
Speaker 2:I'd like to come along and do some of this too.
Speaker 1:There's an interesting point there. We've talked about recruitment a couple of times and quite often it is somebody you've met, worked with colleagues, somebody you've come across, and you talk them into it and they come and join Not you, sorry, all of us we all recruit. Which is really good, but it does worry me a little bit that that's still slightly self-selecting, isn't it? But I don't know how to break that, because it is difficult, I think, sometimes to without that personal touch. How do you bring someone in? I don't know, apart from through podcasts.
Speaker 4:But it's interesting. So a comment was made to me a few weeks back about how council needs to change to move on. So I had a little look back and I just took a five-year window and there are less than half of council members now who were on council five years ago. So we're getting that movement in council. We're seeing career young people come on to council and we're seeing career young people, yeah, come on, come on to come on to council. And we're seeing, I think, more, more diverse representation of the members coming on to council. But within that you don't want to lose institutional knowledge. That, I think, is always the danger for a membership association is if you always strive for kind of churn and change, you know, and I think the thing that both of you bring now this isn't about positive, stroking you unnecessarily and stuff like that, but both of you bring that real depth of institutional knowledge that I would struggle to do my job without.
Speaker 2:Okay, thank you thank you, but I think it's important that you have that mix yeah you know, there's always going to be a few people who've been on council for a long time, but you do need to find a way of not having a complete council made of people who've been on council for a long time, because then you don't get the variety, and I think we're getting a great mix at the moment.
Speaker 4:So I remember my first council meeting so probably March 2012 in Old Seeper, yeah, when we were in Chancellery Lane, yep when people would stand up from the council table and walk to what I consider to be a dock to present their paper. So they would go up into the dais to present their paper, and it was very formal. It was very kind of rigid. There's nothing wrong with that, but it feels like we're in a different place now. It feels like it's there was a little bit wrong with it.
Speaker 1:Come on, I mean, you can have overwhelmed by procedure. I think that's part of the problem. It was quite unattractive to people to come into it. That was also quite nerve-wracking. So I think the move and it also necessarily wasn't very it wasn't necessarily that effective. Yeah, yeah, when the process is that strong, you're not necessarily actually achieving what you need to achieve. So you've been very charitable.
Speaker 2:I think it's good that we've moved on from that the president used to sit up on the days with the onsec and I think I've never had that.
Speaker 1:I retract everything.
Speaker 2:I just said by the time you became the onsec, I think we'd moved into the new building and we didn't need to sit the onsecsac up on. The on-sac used to take the minutes.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, Hang on. Okay, no, I'm very happy with change. I embrace change. I embrace change.
Speaker 4:So we're at Inter or we're in San Diego. We're not at Inter at the moment, we're in a pub, but we're close enough. Why is Inter important for you? V?
Speaker 2:I think that Inter is important because it is one of the biggest IP events of the year and in order to do my job, we need to be able to provide services for our clients around the world, so I need to be able to send instructions out to different jurisdictions, and we are a people business.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, relationships are really important and I've been coming here on and off for about 25 years in all the different countries and maybe not all of the countries they've been to, but lots of different US cities and some European cities, and I think that it's important not only to come and see clients and US attorneys and Australian attorneys and others you may do work for in the UK and in Europe, but also to make sure that you're talking about what they do for your clients as well, because and therefore, even though it's allegedly a trademark conference I've always found pitting people here. No, always. There have always been patent people.
Speaker 4:And we've got the patent track. Now there is. There is no patent element for the program yeah, but it's.
Speaker 2:There's always been patent people here. I mean, I'm a patent person, so, and I've been coming for quite a while and have always found other patent attorneys. After all, our firms do both. We do patents and trademarks.
Speaker 1:Yeah and it's only going to grow. I think I've said a couple of times, but I think it's boiling down to a few massive conferences and it just saves you travelling around the world. It's probably good for the environment. A few less flights, you're going to see everybody in one place. That's not necessarily all bad and next week, great for us obviously.
Speaker 4:Well, vicky, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your time with us. We've not been able to do this much while we've been at inter, because we like to. When we do this podcast remotely, we try and end on some kind of tangent or close a question. Yeah, yeah, it's all about ketchup guy finish him off, but yeah we can't talk about ketchup, right?
Speaker 4:well, he's gone, but I do have a little closer, if you'll indulge me, of course, if that's okay. So I know that both of you mix business and pleasure. Yeah, there are bits of your social personality that blend with your professional personality. So, gwyneth, what do you like to do socially with the people that you know professionally?
Speaker 1:It's definitely this kind of travel thing. Yeah, and so you know we've met up already a couple of times here outside the podcasting Bumped into. Vicky brought him to you last night when we were watching the duck protest. Thank you for joining us on that. I think it's that. It's that and exploring somewhere a bit new. You know we're working, we are out here, we're out here for sleep at the moment, and that's really good. But to do it in a way that's entertaining as well.
Speaker 4:Why?
Speaker 1:not, and I think I'm mixing business and pleasure. I don't think it's much of a distinction. If you get it right, yeah, that's a good thing. You gotta get your head down, you gotta work really hard sometimes, but it's my client same thing. I don't know about you, but he's asking you.
Speaker 4:He's asking you. Yeah, it's your time now.
Speaker 2:Well, it's about that relationship building. You know, you, you it's a people business. So going and having lunch with a us attorney that you are do on a regular basis. You catch up, you hear how their children are doing, you hear how work's going on, you hear how life's going, you talk a bit about some clients and and the questions they've got. It's just part of that friendship and the relationship and the fact that you're going to keep meeting them yes, I've got two, so the first is probably an extension of that.
Speaker 4:So I like the fact that we can have a really heavy, perhaps detailed, at times challenging council meeting that might go on beyond the close and yeah, and then we can, we'll cross the road.
Speaker 4:It doesn't have to be a drink or whatever, but we that's we tend to do that and those conversations can continue and sometimes we'll be talking about contrasting stuff and sometimes we're talking about sort of stuff that we're aligned on. But I just like the fact that we have that dynamic outside of the immediacy of governance and the like where we can continue those conversations, and that can solve problems too.
Speaker 1:Those relationships again can solve problems.
Speaker 4:I also like the fact that we can sometimes really good fun stuff. So last year we did uh, the informals had the football tournament and we had a little staff team in that and I went and played in goal. Um, and I was the only person who played every single minute of every single match. I know, vicky, you do your golf yeah, I enjoy the golf.
Speaker 2:I don't get to pags as much as I'd like and there's actually. There's a golf tournament at inter which I have yet to make sure that I come part of. I'm now on the, so maybe I'll find out next year. Are you good? At golf Sort of mid-ranking.
Speaker 4:I don't understand golf. What does even mid-ranking mean?
Speaker 2:Well, my number is about 14.3. If that helps you.
Speaker 4:It's about 14.3.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it goes up and down. It goes up and down every time.
Speaker 4:So that is such a pattern of totally specific answers.
Speaker 2:It's about 14.29 and 14.31. It only means you get on this golf course, you have 16 shots, and you get on that golf course, you have 17 shots. Thank you so much for coming on, Gwilym.
Speaker 4:thanks for being the absolute amazing host that you always are and not being too distracted by Ketchup man.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry I got on your nerves there it did slightly get on my nerves. I suppose it's blame him. There's a lot of ketchup going down there.
Speaker 3:Well him, there's a lot of ketchup going down and um well, it's on to the next one. Boom, outro Music.