On the move

Announcement

I must apologize for the gap in postings. From the end of March, I have started working for Intellectual Ventures - the World's foremost invention capital company - as Vice President of Global Licensing in Europe.

It will be very busy as we build the team over the next few months to grow our business.

I would like to thank everybody who has stopped by this blog, especially those who have contacted me to give comments and feedback.

For more information about Intellectual Ventures in Europe, click here.

Newsworthy week in European IP

What a week for IP in Europe!

Big news 1: Rejection of EEUPC

First the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rejected the proposal to form a new European and European Union Patent Court (EEUPC). It seems to be a polarizing decision.

Emigration

Martin Murphy, managing director of Hewlett Packard in Ireland had an important opinion piece in the Irish Times newspaper today. It prompted me to comment with the following rant.

I agree with almost all of this opinion piece apart from the opening premise. There is a broadly-held view that emigration is a bad thing for Ireland.

In some ways it is true. Splitting up families and tearing people away from their roots is always a huge personal sacrifice. When people are forced to emigrate because of lack of options at home, it is tragic. Similarly, it is a huge waste of national funds and effort to educate our young if the result is that other economies will benefit unilaterally from Irish investment.

However this misses out on some important questions.