A patent describes a device or process which has never been openly disclosed to the public. It sets out the framework of an invention in which the patentee wishes to claim exclusive ownership and must be described in sufficient detail for one (skilled in the art) to replicate it. Ultimately it is this public disclosure which spreads the invention and in return, society rewards the inventor with a period, normally 20 years, of a monopoly.

The patent will need to be written, filed, defended and hopefully granted. Within a year to 18 months it will go international, thanks to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), which today gives the inventor a choice of 44 countries in which to have exclusive ownership of the innovation. To gain widening geographic monopoly, the patent now has to pay fees to and run the gauntlet of patent officers and potentially interested parties in each of the chosen countries. The will be subject to a barrage of attacks, questioning its novelty, utility, obviousness and its interference with other patents. The constant aim of attack is to kill or restrict its coverage. The benefit however is that, if successful, an asset is created that can be sold, assigned, licensed or otherwise used to protect the core of a news business.

A patent can help spread an invention which ultimately contributes to the success of open innovation through the dissemination of ideas and technologies. At this stage you might be questioning what exactly I mean by open innovation – essentially open innovation is the process of looking outside a company’s internal R&D departments to innovations generated by others which could be of benefit to an organisation. Another way of thinking about it is that a good idea can come from anyone, anywhere and patents essentially provide a list of innovations which could be of relevance to a company, for example to help develop new products or overcome significant problems in a production process. By looking outside an organisation we can discover solutions that were previously clouded by our myopic viewpoint.

In conclusion, I am not a lawyer but I have learned in my roles as a researcher, manager and mentor, of the importance of patents and I would suggest that our technology creators still need them and ought to learn how to use them strategically.

Norman and the Competitors

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, that one of the joys of my job is getting to meet some of the bright young researchers who live in the laboratories of our Universities. I was delighted, therefore, to be given the privilege by this year’s organiser, Dr Shirley Davey of UU’s Nanotechnology and Integrated Bio-Engineering Centre at Jordanstown, of chairing the judges at the Ireland heat of the World Lecture Competition. The competition is organised by the professional bodies for Materials Research in Ireland, North and South, (Materials Ireland and the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining; if you want to read more see http://www.materials-ireland.ie/ and http://www.iom3.org/ ). I was joined on the judging panel by other sponsors from Invest NI, InterTradeIreland and Bombardier and I have to say the only problem we had was to select excellent from excellence.

The competition is mainly about the quality of presentation rather than content, though naturally being science based, the originality and import of the study was never far from the judges’ minds. What a delight the event was in that regard and what a break from the graft of budget and corporate planning that was the main subject of the rest of my week. In a variety of accents that spanned Ireland and Eurasia, six enthusiastic and skilful researchers relayed studies in materials that spanned Bio-fuel cell research in Limerick to improved ways of preventing corrosion in anodic alumina in Dublin. Far and away the highest proportion were reporting studies in how to achieve the many benefits of polymers as implants into our bodies to repair defects of nature or of accident.

Biology has produced mechanisms of self-repair, the envy of the man-made world, but when it is pushed beyond its limits by accident or disease, we are all glad of the intervention of the surgeon and an implant. Unfortunately at that time, we encounter the brilliance of biology in detecting the foreign material and reacting against it. So these young researchers, on behalf of humanity, are learning and honing their knowledge and skills trying to devise ways of treating the surfaces to trick the body’s defences for long enough to get regrowth and repair or at least to fuse implant and body permanently and painlessly. Almost as importantly, they have been developing communication skills matching those of their science.

As with so much these days, communicating only to ones’ peers is only a tiny fraction of what is needed. If these men and women are to succeed they must persuade funders, medical authorities, hard-nosed business people and the public to support their work, a communication challenge almost as big as the science itself.

So I am glad to report our future is in good hands but now it’s time to do our part. These discoveries and inventions have wider uses than bone grafts and biology. Materials remain vital to much, maybe even all, of our advanced manufacturing industries. These young folk have made their move to communicate well; it behoves us to take a curious step in their direction to see if we can use the fruits of their labour for our economy, before others do, as they undoubtedly will!

This provoked a review which was long overdue, in reality.

Advanced applied physics had been the servant of Government since its successes of WWII: Radar, Sonar and of course the Bomb. Every time Government thought they would get a breather from funding it, somebody would invent something else strategic like digital communications, encryption or liquid crystals to cause them to keep on. Anyway, the success of the great Star Wars spoof and the collapse of the Soviet Union allowed the mass privatisation and “civilianising” of the industries. IOP had reacted by entrenching back into academe despite the fact that half its membership were in industry and business. Physicists were in demand from banking to bioscience but their learned body had not come with them.

So my job was to find ways of re-connecting and of re-emphasising the importance of the subject to the economies of the 21^st century. One output is our new award scheme recognising the role of Physics in Business.

Tomorrow (1st February) will see nominations open for the inaugural IOP Innovation Awards. These will recognise and celebrate excellence in physics-based innovation in companies in the UK and Ireland and I for one would like to see some Northern Ireland entrants come forward to compete with the best across these islands.

While it may seem obvious to some, the fact that physics-derived innovations are at the core of the successes of many modern businesses will come as a surprise to many. From autonomous forklifts in supermarket warehouses to the complex algorithms underpinning the risk management software of large insurance markets, physics is at the heart of the commercial world. And now more than ever it is time to bring this “hidden” physics into the light.

That’s why the IOP’s Council decided last year to create the IOP Innovation Awards to complement the longstanding scientific and leadership awards. The Innovation Awards will be won by companies of all sizes and from all sectors that have built their success on physics. A new innovative development in, say, a fighter jet’s engine is built on physics as much as a new application of technologies in a retail warehouse system, or a bank’s investment modelling software. The Innovation Awards will celebrate them all.

They’re open to companies or business units with a commercial base in the UK or Ireland. Companies can nominate themselves and will need to demonstrate commercial growth following the implementation of a product or service derived from a physics-based innovation.

The IOP Innovation Awards are a prestigious high-profile mark that demonstrates that companies have built their successes on physics. The winners will be able to showcase their achievements at an exhibition in the autumn and will be presented with their awards at a prestigious Awards Dinner.

The deadline for nominations is 30 April. To enter, or for more details, visit http://iop.org/innovation

I guess most readers know that in the Science Park we elected to use the San Diego CONNECT model to provide the back bone of our programmes and networks. One of the key founders of CONNECT is Prof Mary Walshok, who has been a continuing source of advice to us as we seek to achieve the same effect to our economy. Since then she has worked in many problem areas of the USA and elsewhere in the world and these experiences have only re-enforced and consolidated her early work in San Diego.

In a recent paper for the IEDC (article 10171), Mary reviewed the roots of CONNECT’s success. Without a hint of embarrassment and with deep gratitude to Mary, I replicate the abstract here for you.

The Early Roots of San Diego’s Innovation Economy, The IEDC Economic Development Journal, vol.10, No 4, p. 44-50, Fall 2011

By

Mary Lindenstein Walshok

University of California, San Diego

“As regions across the United States focus on how to grow innovation clusters, they are placing a major emphasis on the role of research institutions and venture capital as crucial to any kind of change. However, academic research is suggesting that, while such assets are necessary, they are not sufficient. A culture that values innovation and enables collaboration is essential. Such a culture is supported by frequent and high-quality social interactions among the diverse partners in cluster development. This, in turn, is greatly enabled by two critical factors: geographic propinquity and dynamic boundary-spanning activities and organizations.

San Diego, California, which today is home to some of the nation’s most robust technology clusters such as wireless, biotech and software, is an interesting example of how early regional land use decisions by the public sector coupled with “venture” investments and practices on the part of the private sector jump-started the growth of the new economy. The cluster of R&D institutions, high-tech and biotech companies, IP law firms, venture capital firms and related business services now agglomerated on the Torrey Pines Mesa was largely enabled by geographic propinquity and a collaborative culture. This collaborative culture has deep historical roots and, over the last 30 years, has been reinforced by the science and technology boundary-spanning organization known as CONNECT, which organizes close to 300 events a year to bring together all the players in the innovation ecosystem. The knowledge flows, high levels of trust, collaborative capacity and nimbleness needed in entrepreneurial ventures are significantly enabled by this combination of geographic propinquity and boundary-spanning activities.”

Mary has reviewed our work in Northern Ireland and reckons that, while we have a way to go, we are getting there. Let’s all keep on keeping on!

I don’t think it’s changed much. A child skimming through the press and political announcements today would be forgiven for thinking that only the City of London makes worthwhile contributions to our GDP. With that self-same rationale for our recent political decisions in relation to Europe, still ringing in our ears, I think it’s worth a little personal research, as at the beginning of 2012, we prepare to rebalance and to rebuild our economy.

I had a head start thanks to conversational updates during those hours spent in the airport lounge last year, en route to London-based meetings, alongside so many other NI business people. For those interested, I’m going to point to a series of websites.

http://www.glendimplex.com/ , http://www.wrightbus.com/site/default.asp?CATID=2 ,

http://www.belfast.aero.bombardier.com/ , http://www.powerscreen.com/en/,

http://www.intelesens.com/, http://www.heartsine.com/en/ , http://www.andor.com/ ,

http://www.wcrx.com/about.jsp , http://www.almacgroup.com/ , http://www.randox.com/

There are many more (see for example http://www.nisp.co.uk/?page_id=28 for another 100) but I think these, especially the first, are among the most surprising. Taken together, you will see a clutch of vibrant growing Northern Irish companies that have grown as well as any in the world, by taking on the world and impacting nearly every market place. From machines for mining and mass transit, to medical marvels and top flight consumer durables, there is something here to interest every technically minded person in the country. These advances have been made by our fellow country men and women and it behoves us all to get behind and shove.

Better still is what may still come!

I’m writing this before the holiday, but being sad and disinterested in X-factor, Strictly Come Dancing and such, I expect to while away the sloth of over-indulgence in front of National Geographic, Discovery Channel or some BBC equivalent. Most of the world’s current advances in technology on show, through such channels, are no more than two degrees of separation away from the companies above. For example, Terrex, the owner of Powerscreen, makes the world’s biggest excavators and is a literal powerhouse in the world of mining; Caterpillar, the owner of FG Wilson, is another. Immediately therefore, the NI economy is connected with the most vital element of current times, the global supply of scarce resources.

I know it’s tough on the high street, and in the administrative corridors, with both having consequentials for the construction industry but I do think it’s important to balance the news especially as we give it to the young; so give yourself and yours a lift and check out our amazing companies!

No, I just bought the eponymous e-book reader.

Now wherever I am and whatever internet devices I buy or have access to, anywhere in the world, I can read my favourite classic authors or the latest detective fiction, at my choice. No longer am I subject to the inflated prices of books and magazines in airport and other waiting rooms. I can free up my bookcases and give them over only to the best books; ones that I treasure for some attribute beyond just the information they contain. It’s not just for published material either; I can carry my own working papers for meetings in London in the same container, in my coat pocket and freed of briefcase and lap-top. I can access family photos to personalise a room or apartment anywhere in the world, so long as it has an internet connection.

Best of all, this personal library is stored on computers networked all around the world and backed up for ever, without my having to do a thing. I can buy a book so fast, with or without a trial read, that I’m glad the provider offered an emergency button to un-buy any item purchased by a clumsy finger.

So why am I writing all this?

Strange as it may seem, nothing has brought home to me more graphically the changes going on in our world. Yet, especially at this time of year, we’ll still expect people to be flocking with open wallets into our high streets, to create the usual year on year increases in sales. I’m afraid one person’s technology boon can so easily be another’s bane; so what’s to do?

The only answer is to embrace the change, add it to what you know and love and go for it!

If you need inspiration, look no further than the list of Management Today’s list of their top 100 entrepreneurs; see http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/features/1055791/Britains-Top-100-Entrepreneurs-2011-Premier-League . Out of its top hundred, Northern Ireland boasts two family companies. For the first time ever a statistic in which we achieve better than our demographic due.

One is Christopher Watson of Chain Reaction Cycles.

In 25 years, Chain Reaction Cycles has grown from a small family-owned village bike shop in Ballynure, to the number one online bike store in the world, thanks to a £1,500 bank loan and the technology of Science Park based Export Technologies.

The others are Paul and Jeremy Eakin of TG Eakin.

Co Down-based TG Eakin was formed in 1974 to manufacture ostomy products, by Tom Eakin, a pharmacist. Based on the experiences of his customers, he spotted an opportunity to provide better disposable bags and pouches for urostomy and colostomy patients. The company pioneered new designs, materials and adhesives and now supplies colostomy and wound care products to more than 30 countries.

The only constant is change and we all have to make it work for us, especially since it’s now easier than ever to follow the lead of the Watsons and the Eakins, to ensure Happy Christmases into the long term. Checkout the services of http://www.whisplecloudservices.com/  or  http://www.dni2020.com/home , for example to see how easy it is to go global from Northern Ireland.

As I write this a super-size rover vehicle, the biggest, best equipped robot ever sent to explore another planet, is zooming towards Mars on a 354 million-mile journey which will take over eight months. It has been dubbed by NASA as the “largest and most complex piece of equipment to ever be placed on the surface of another planet,” and “truly a wonder in engineering.”

I have to agree that it is pretty impressive. The six-wheeled vehicle called ‘Curiosity’ will reach Mars next summer and use its drills, cameras, lasers and other devices to search for evidence that Earth’s near neighbour may have once been home to a form of life.

Weighing almost one ton and measuring- 10ft long, 9ft wide and 7ft tall– it is essentially a mobile, nuclear-powered laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will survey the landscape, collect samples from the surface, analyze the chemical composition of the Martian soil, and provide weather data.

As is typical in modern Space programmes the mission relies on international partnerships – combining the best in U.S. imagination and innovation with support from other partners including France, Canada, Germany, Russia and Spain. It will provide a “virtual presence” on Mars for more than 200 scientists around the world able to analyse data on the spot.

The £1.6 billion mission is designed to help scientists understand how Mars might have supported life, but it will also help international teams understand the capabilities they must reach to support a human presence on the planet.

The previous Mars rovers, ‘Spirit’ and ‘Opportunity’ paved the way for ‘Curiosity’s’ mission with their discoveries that wet environments did exist on ancient Mars. But it left the question, which of those formerly wet spots may have supported life? Curiosity will seek to gather data to answer that question and in turn pave the way for future missions to search for life itself.

While the planetary mission is the primary goal, the job of getting the rig to Mars is no small achievement either. In fact, the mission depends on three sophisticated vehicles – the vehicle that gets you to Mars, the vehicle that actually penetrates the atmosphere and manages the entry, descent and landing; and then Curiosity itself.  Improving technology in all these areas will lead to another generation of equipment to support an eventual human mission to Mars.

It is hard not to be impressed by the scale and ambition of this mission. It is a great reminder of the human spirit and desire to discover the unknown. At the same time this drive delivers the best innovative solutions to make that exploration possible…innovations which often then find useful applications here on earth.

The latest mission reminded me of our very own experience with NASA when one of the last Space Shuttle crews visited the NI Science Park to formally open the Titanic Dock & Pumphouse in 2008. Then the NASA crew dubbed Belfast as the ‘Cape Canaveral’ of its time – seeing it as the launch pad for many of the world’s industrial and engineering feats. Regaining that reputation on the global stage is our Mission.

I have had the good fortune to sample both.

I completed the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award while at school, thanks to many friends and teachers, who set up and measured the tasks and went with me on the hikes and other adventures. I am certain that the whole experience, carefully crafted as it was to balance self-improvement and self-less service to the community, influenced my life choices at every juncture and led to an appreciation of overcoming challenge. I really do believe every teenager should be afforded that opportunity alongside their formal lessons.

I was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy only recently and so have only seen a limited amount of its work at first hand. Already, however, I have witnessed the powerful force for good in our profession that it is. School activities, prizes, sponsorships and lobbying the decision makers, all focussed on the message, that engineering is just as vibrant and vital as ever.

Engineering has been trapped by its own name, it seems. Other nations’ etymology kept the link with the true roots of the word (e.g. ingenious to ingenieur) but in English it got confused with its first product, the engine. Not that there is anything wrong with that per se, except that it misses the huge variety of activity and the total human worth involved in the 21^st century profession.  Everything, we touch and use in our daily life has passed through the hands, desk or computer of an engineer. Without any doubt, on our search for an export-led way out of our current economic troubles, we are going to need all the ingenuity we can muster.

The academy has topped its previous achievements with the recent launch of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. This international prize of £1m for a person (or a team of no more than 3) aims to rival the Nobel prizes in status and in recognition. So it hopes to raise the profile of the profession. Had this prize existed in the past, Northern Ireland would have a good chance with several contenders, giants of global engineering, like Harry Ferguson or James Martin.

Have we got what it takes today to win this prize? Yes, is my enthusiastic answer but we have to give them a chance, and better still, not to have to go and to do it elsewhere like Ferguson and Martin had to, but to do it here and soon. That means providing every legal method of support for the people with the best ideas to get them in front of the market places and with the capital investments they need to take on the world. So I’m delighted to see in the new programme for government and in the associated economic strategy, the continuing emphasis on Innovation, remembering always that the “In” bit belongs to Ingenious and hence to Engineering. In engineering with products like the New Bus for London might also be the secret to the dream of Rebuilding but let’s not forget we want a Winner of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering in our lifetimes, not in the 300 year old future, the Duke forsees for his beloved Academy.

‘Generation Innovation’ is a physical and online network for Northern Ireland’s young talent deemed most likely to succeed in the new knowledge economy. The purpose of the network is to build and maintain a life-long relationship with this generation, be they high academic achievers, natural born entrepreneurs or both. In doing so we want to encourage our home grown talent to either study or work in Northern Ireland or at the very least encourage them to keep a close relationship with home if they decide to relocate elsewhere.

Recent reports suggest a slow economic recovery is on the cards but longer-term Northern Ireland has an opportunity to become one of the most entrepreneurial knowledge economies in the world and our local talent has the ability to create innovative companies that could provide solutions for many of the world’s major problems be they in communication, health, energy, environment, transport or food and water supply. In order to achieve this we need to inspire and nurture our future business leaders, and that’s what Generation Innovation is all about.

At the inaugural Generation Innovation Networking event which took place at Belfast’s City Hall (a building which in itself evokes memories of Northern Ireland’s innovative past with tributes to those who worked in the thriving shipbuilding and linen industries) students heard from leading global technology expert Gail Power, Director of Online Sales Operations for Facebook. Herself originally from Northern Ireland, she encouraged the students whether they were studying engineering, medicine, software, law, languages or indeed any other discipline, to ‘think outside the box’ and use the valuable skills learnt at school to become Northern Ireland’s next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs.

Also at the event were over 20 local private sector technology company founders including Hugh Cormican from Cirdan Imaging, Brendan Mooney, Kainos, Des Speed, PathXL formerly of Lagan Technologies and Sheena Lewis from Lewis Fertility who shared their career experiences of innovation and entrepreneurship. Members also got the opportunity to view a fast-paced, must see video which highlights the importance of the initiative. I would highly recommend viewing the video at http://www.generationinnovation.co.uk

Along with exclusive invites to a number of annual high profile ‘Generation Innovation’ Events, members of the network will join the Generation Innovation Facebook group which allows members to exchange ideas, post news about their development and seek out internships and valuable business relationships with established local innovators who want to give back to the younger generation and encourage the growth of the NI economy.

Another event backed by the Science Park to engage with local school children is ‘Kings of Cool’ which is taking place on the 7th December at the Titanic’s Dock and Pump-House. Sponsored by the Institute of Physics, Association for Science Education and Oxfod Instruments Professor George Walmsley and I will deliver a Christmas lecture on the History, Science and Applications of Superconductivity and the surprising and little known, role that Belfast played in the discovery of one of the most mysterious large-scale phenomena known to physics. The event will also be streamed live at 11am and available from http://bit.ly/NISPlive.

At the Science Park we understand that if our economy is to prosper we must continue to promote the huge global opportunities that exist in developing a knowledge economy. Our younger generation are the key to unlocking this potential and we must collectively inspire more of them to follow this path.

You can read the story for yourself for £1, if you own an e-book reader (Our family has become big fans) but just in case you don’t, here’s the potted version. Forget the kettle lid lifting tales! Watt was instrument maker to the University of Glasgow and came under the tutelage of one son of Belfast, Joseph Black. Sponsored by the Whisky industry and challenged to provide the science that would allow better prediction and profit from the annual grain harvest and subsequent distillation, Black had understood latent heat for the first time and had turned Glasgow into the world leader in what is now called thermodynamics.

So it was that when a Cornish blacksmith, Thomas Newcomen, devised the first steam engine, Black had his model maker copy it, the better to teach his students. Problem was, it didn’t scale down and he and Watt set to the challenge. The issue turned out to be latent heat and so Watt devised his now famous “separate condenser”, which immediately increased the device efficiency by three times.

You would think, and so did Watt, that the world would give its eye teeth for such a machine and that he would make a king’s ransom, just for the asking, but no; for fifteen years after first patent, Watt’s attempts to commercialise failed. It was not until his path crossed with Mathew Boulton’s of Birmingham that his fortune (and that of the nation) changed. In a partnership, notable not only for its business success but for friendship, ethical and honest behaviour and for the advancement of science generally, they changed the world and made us the first industrial nation.

There are many aspects to what they did. I borrowed their licensing style which was to share the fruits of their invention fairly with all who took it on board and irrespective of geography. Mean-while they used the wealth so created and their special knowledge of the science to keep one jump ahead and to devise other high-added value products that could enter the market directly from Birmingham, the precious metal work, coinage and jewellery for which it is still famous.

So well done Bank of England; for reminding us all every time we see the new note that the knowledge economy includes advanced, high added value manufacturing. Mind you there’s a small regret for me, because I had a small technical connection with the old note and now that little frisson will be absent, on those rare occasions when I have one in my wallet!