IT programming to IP problem solving: In conversation with Scott Roberts

Gordon Harris: Good day to you wherever in the world you may be watching or listening to this.  My name is Gordon Harris from the Gowling WLG International IP Leadership Team and this is the latest in our series of interviews with leading figures in the IP world.  The IP world is full of organisations with initials for names which hosts meetings and conferences for lawyers, patented attorneys, counsel etc.  However, I think it is fair to say the really important people in our IP world are those who create, register and own IP rights.

In the UK the big IP owners have their own organisation, IP Federation and my guess today is the current president of the IP Federation, Scott Roberts, in his day job Scott is Principal Patent Attorney at British Telecom and he sits on numerous committees and advisory boards.  If I listed them all, it would take up all our time.  So welcome Scott.

Scott Roberts: Thank you Gordon.

Gordon: Now, let us start with learning a bit about how you got to your current… well many positions in the IP world.  Where did it all begin for you and how did you get into IP?

Scott: Well that is interesting because sadly it started with not the least bit interest in IP (laughter).  Look, as a kid, I was a computer programmer.  I was a computer programmer from about the age of ten, always programming games.  I remember well… my brother would be my bug finder and we would sit there together in the bedroom.  I would be programming away and he would be… yes I would spend six hours programming and he would spend ten minutes and find all the flaws.

So that was my passion as a sort of teenager and at the age of 16 I produced vehicle navigation system in software.  So that was before GPS and satnav, so you know… that was kind of fun and we did not have vehicle tracking or monitoring technology back then so I then had to move on and produce a simulation for traffic.  So I did all that sort of stuff at school and I absolutely loved it and I was really lucky to then be awarded a scholarship to study computer science on IBM's time which was quite rare.  I think they would sponsor about 15 students a year, so it was quite competitive and I had to really prove myself but I was so passionate about programming and I had done it for so long that… you know that was just my thing, it was my bag.  Thoroughly enjoyed that.

So I spent the three years of my degree working at IBM whilst taking a sort of day‑release approach to university and getting a degree through that route.  I am not sure that I would ever have gone to University if it had not been for IBM in fact.  You know, I was not from the wealthiest of backgrounds so University was not necessarily on the cards, so I was really really pleased and grateful to have had that opportunity and it naturally led to a role at IBM as a Software Engineer, which I did for about 12 years I suppose after that.  And I worked mainly at the Software Development Laboratory in Winchester at IBM.  We were writing the Java Virtual Machine for any software people out there, who know about Java.

We were not writing in Java, we were actually writing Java!  Which was fantastic and none of friends would believe me.  You know, they would all think "oh, you mean you're a Java programmer?"  And I would say "no, no, no, we are writing Java".  You know it was phenomenal.

But after ten years it did occur to me that writing software for someone else is not as much fun as writing it for yourself.  It is not the same as being in your bedroom writing computer games.  So I did you know… I suppose it became a little stale for me and I did look for and I did look around a little and that was the point when Roger Burt, actually, who is a fairly well‑known patent attorney in the profession who was the IBM Head of Department took me under his wing and trained me to be a patent attorney in IBM.

And I worked with Roger for ten years, all of the patent lawyers at IBM and directly with Dave Caposs who was the Head of the IP Function at IBM for a good long while there.  Before of course he went on to be the Head of the US PTO.

Gordon: Well, quite yes.

Scott: It was a really valuable experience actually, not only was I looking after what you normally do in‑house, sort of IBM legal issues and intellectual property protection, but Dave was… maybe a precursor to his role at US PTO, was very in… and involved in policy issues.  And we were looking together at international patent harmonisation.  We… I produced a paper for Dave to share on collaborative examination by patent offices around the world, so bringing together the key patent offices, sharing work products, sharing search reports, collaboration between the examiners on examination reports.

And that really sort of positioned me for both a… sort of a hybrid job in being a Patent Attorney, doing the core job and working on policy issues.  And in fact it was at that time that I moved house and, as you often do when you move house, you go through all of your belongings from years back.  And I went into the loft and I dragged out all my old books and what have you.  And I found a print out from the… my school's career service and at the very top… so this was a print out, you would fill in an on‑line questionnaire and this very special computer, a bit like ERNIE, would come back with a list of jobs that would be well suited to you.

And I was always pleased, as a kid, that number two on the list was computer programmer, because that was all I wanted to do.  And, it was not until 20 years later when I went into my loft and got this print out and sort of spotted… number one on the list was patent attorney.

Gordon: Laughs, wow!

Scott: Yes, as a kid, I had no idea what that meant and frankly was not at all interested (laughs) but 20 years later to find that I had fallen into the job that ERNIE thought was my job was quite remarkable.  So you know I was really kind of chuffed… I thought that was quite telling.  It really does work everybody, those…(laughter)

Gordon: Yes, well, I did exactly the same test and it told me that I would be a lawyer, so here I am.

Scott: There you go, you see…

Gordon: (Laughs), there is…

Scott: It is sad if you get answers you do not want but, for me, it worked.

Gordon: It really is, there's something in it.

Scott: I left IBM after about 20 years, spent some time in private practice which was a very insightful experience and then I went to work for BT and I have been at BT ever since.  I have loved BT.  It is really great to work in British industry.  I especially enjoy the fact that of course, being British industry, the buck stops here in the UK and that is really empowering because, when it comes to policy, strategy, commercial nous, then being at the place where the final decision rests, here in London and the UK, is very powerful and encouraging.

So I have been doing that now for about ten years and I absolutely love it.  Very much a fully laden Patent Attorney, you know I not one of those in‑house attorneys that sends all of our work out to outside lawyers.  I do a very (laughs) healthy number of drafts every year, very healthy amount of prosecutions, still attending hearings, still advising directly with inventors and loving every minute of it.

So, yes, that is how I got to where I am and of course President of the IP Federation came after that.  I have been working at the IP Federation for about ten years now and I was appointed President in 2020 which is just an absolute privilege.

Gordon: Well, we will come back to a bit… there are some fantastic clues there as to what happens later in your career which we will come back to later.  The only thing is that I just do not know how you fit everything into your day (laughs), judging from what you have just said there, but there we are.  So your focus, really, as you said pretty much since a child have been on IT tech related matters and over the last 25 years or so, you know the IT world has progressed at such a phenomenal pace and, if anything, that now seems to be accelerating.  So, how have you gone about keeping up with the pace of change in your working life?

Scott: Well my first observation would be my wife would very much agree with you about how I fit it all in (laughs) and she has a point of view on that too.  Keeping up with technology and the pace of change, yes it is a huge challenge.  I mean it is true for all patent attorneys and I speak from the profession I am in, Pattern Attorney profession, but I am sure that it is the same for all IP lawyers and that ilk.

Because… the technology we are working with… we are not at the front of the technology… we are not sort of the leading edge, we are ahead of the leading edge.  I always think of it as sort of the front line in an ever increasing sphere and we are always outside it, trying to stay ahead because the inventions and the tech we work on of course, it is all new, it is all completely unheard of by its very nature.

So we are always jumped over the front line and looking back at it and that is incredibly difficult to do.  Even the scientists and engineers who work as scientists and engineers struggle to keep up with what their peers are doing all the time and as patent attorneys, of course, we are having to do the same thing without the benefit of being the scientists and engineers who are paid all day to work on this stuff other than when we are talking to inventors.

So, that is a huge challenge and I would come back to the fact that at my core, I am a scientist and always have been and never stop being and never will stop being… and you know to talk about computer science… I miss programming every day, I actually… you know, I can come home at the end of the day and just wish it was a reasonable thing for me to spend seven or eight hours at my PC and tapping away and see.  It is not a reasonable thing because I have got plenty of other things to do and my wife would hate me for it.  But I would genuinely not want to do anything else, if I could.

But that sort of passion makes it easier for me to try and keep up.  I am not saying I stay ahead (laughs), but to try and keep up, because I am interested, you know.  I will read the journals, I will read the books, I listen to the inventors and I do think… if there is one thing… if I could effect a sort of… an educational policy in the UK, I really do believe that it would be beneficial for everybody to have programmed a computer, at least once.  I mean, it is essentially just mathematics.

But the way that programming forces us to analyse problems extremely logically and the way that the machines we programme… they are not very clever really and so you have to piecemeal give them every instruction and then contemplate every state in which they can exist.  That approach to looking at problems and that approach to looking at technology which we can always resolve the first principles, can be applied to other aspects of our lives and I do this with inventors.

When I work with inventors, I very much like them to programme me with their invention.  So start with me being a blank state machine and then just give me the insight I need and only the insight I need, do not tell me the stuff that I do not need to know about because it is just going to fill my RAM.  But give me the insight I need and I will… by piecemeal, hopefully understand the instructions you are giving me and, in theory, understand your invention and you know… the good thing about things like programming and mathematics is that it does not change, so although the leading edge of technology is always moving on, the fundamentals are always the same, the first principles.

One technique that I have really enjoyed using and has been very powerful to me in working with inventors, for example in high tech, is to always reflect inventions back to the inventor impromptu in my own words, in a very short sort of precis form.  And I had a meeting very recently with an inventor, so a PHD student working with BT, that had been working on some technology for about two and a half years and she presented the technology to me, over about an hour, and it was complicated stuff.  And I am always thinking plain language, programming is a bit like plain language, patent plain language.

So I was constantly taking in what she said and you know rejigging it, generalising it, broadening it, being more reasonable in terms of scope.  And we got to the end of the hour and I went back to her with a sort of five line precis of what I thought the invention was and she was a bit disappointed, because her two and a half years of work had been (laughs) resorted to five lines.  And, you know, it is always good if the inventor cannot fault those five lines (laughs) but, you know, it is rarely the case that they cannot fault them.  But if you can get five lines, or six lines, or a paragraph that reflects that hour long conversation, then I think you have done the job well.  First principles, it works, I think.

Gordon: That is really interesting in many ways.  I want to move on to IP in a minute, but you have handed me such a tee up there.  You said that the machines you work with are not particularly clever.  So, I cannot ask you now about artificial intelligence and whether that is impacting on you yet and any thoughts you have in that area.

Scott: Absolutely, yes.  So I am very passionate about artificial intelligence and I prepared a couple of consultation responses to the recent UK consultation by the IPO on AI and IP.  In terms of technical… I think your question is about sort of the technical potential of AI.

Gordon: It is.

Scott: We do not have artificial general intelligence at the moment.  Sci‑Fi is not real, it is not foreseeable and let us remember… we need to stay grounded I think.  Artificial intelligence is a tool, it finds its origins in how we can programme computers to do things where to tell them how to respond in every situation is unreasonable and impracticable so an example would be speech synthesis or handwriting recognition.

I cannot reasonably sit down and programme a computer to recognise every single handwritten letter "a".  It is just not possible, because the number of variations is phenomenal and you will know, as a human, there are many letters "a's" that do not look like letter "a's" at all, so how can I even start to tell a computer how to distinguish an "a" from an "o" or a "b" or something else.  So the inspiration for machine learning as we have it today is that there are problems that exist that we cannot programme a computer to solve and AI and machine learning is the way to do that.

It is to say, well we cannot tell you, computer, how to do this but what we can do is show you a whole load of examples (laughs) and you will just pick out the salient points, computer and when you have picked out the salient points, please apply that to another one I will give you and see if you get the right answer.  So, that… you know… in a nutshell is AI.  It is very much a tool, it is a new way of programming.  If I was to talk about questions that have been raised like "can AI invent?"  I think the answer is fairly clear.  You know… AI can create novelties, AI can help us discover new and clever things, but AI is a machine, it is a tool, it is part of the armoury of the inventor, I think.  So, yes, we have to be careful to stay grounded with that dialogue, I think.

Gordon: Yes, I think that is a really important point actually…at the moment… I had one of these conversations a few months ago, you may have seen, with Ulrika Till, from the World Intellectual Property Organisation, who is Head of their AI Policy, and we got round to discussing whether or not AI could write the perfect Eurovision song contest entry which I said was the ultimate expression of rubbish in, rubbish out.  And that is still very much there, is it not?  You know it is still…AI is only as good as what we put into it, at the moment.

Scott: Yes, and there is always that problem of "what is perfect?"  I mean one of the challenges with AI is that it needs to be guided, it needs to have an objective and somebody has to set that objective.  There are those who contemplate the possibility of AI being very generalised and sort of serendipitously discovering novelties and you know that is possible, I could send a machine off to go and discover things.  But, at some point, someone has to determine that a novelty is useful, is applicable, is even a novelty.  Those sort of questions that have to sort to accompany whatever serendipitous discovery takes places means that there is likely to need to be a bit of wet brain involved as well as silicon brain.

Gordon: Yes, and I think that is good to hear (laughs).  Frankly, I think we are all a bit relieved by that.  So let us move on to IP Federation.  So the organisation celebrated its centenary in 2020.  How would you describe its work and its role representing IP owners in the UK?

Scott: Well, the IP Federation is… I mean it is a phenomenal association.  I am really privileged to have been elected the President for this year.  So, just as a basic background, we are 45 member companies at the moment and what is really special about us, is that we are not sectoral.  You know, most associations are either industry sector or profession… I mean with the exception of national, like the CBI, most associations are specific to one profession or an industry.  But we are completely cross sector and we are focussed on the core issue of intellectual property.

We have got members from our field, IT and telecoms and we have got members from fields that are completely different in their approach to their IP such as pharma.  I mean a pharma IP strategy is very different to a telecoms IP strategy, but they work together very well through the Federation.  We have got manufacturing members, aerospace, automotive, agriscience – they are all there, even consumer and retail.

The point of the IP Federation and its reason for existence is to advocate for the right IP framework for industry because industry recognises that it holds the cheque book ultimately, when it comes to the IT framework.  We tend to pay the bills on registered rights.  We pay the cost if there is an infringement, we enjoy the benefit as well for rights that we own and can commercialise.  So it is a sort of two sword and we very much recognise that there needs to be a voice for that sector of the IP stakeholder framework… the owners of the applicants.

As a Federation, we are organised as a Council and I think we are quite rare.  I am not aware of any other association that meets to discuss technical issues in its field on a monthly basis and we do do that.  And these monthly meetings, as I say, they are not administrative meetings where we talk about admin and business.  We are talking about actual IP issues and we are formulating policy and we are exploring how we are going to influence stakeholders and policy makers and we do that every month, the first week of the month, and it works very well.

It takes all morning and the people in that room, member representatives are generally lawyers, patent attorneys, trademark attorneys, solicitors, barristers from the member companies.  So they have the technical insight in addition to the commercial insight into their industry and we also enjoy the benefit of very selective representation from some of the law practices.

Gordon: Indeed.

Scott: We have some associate solicitors and barristers and we also have former members who have great experience, may be retirees of the member companies who work with us as policy advisors and we employ consultants as well, where we need to.  And… you know we have grown a great reputation I think.  We stand up as probably one of the few pillars in the IP framework in the UK.  Certainly, when talking to government and, for example, the European Patent Office, that sort of organisation.  And we are depended upon by the CBI, Confederation of British Industry, for IP expertise because you know the CBI covers everything (laughs) and IP… it is a very specific technical area.  So there is an element of dependence on us for that.

And through the CBI we have representatives directly on Business Europe working groups, Business Europe being the sort of European CBI, it is like the confederation of all the confederations.  So, not only are we helping with the UK industry confederation but also the European.  And by European, I am not talking to you, Business Europe is a true Europe, geographic Europe and through that we then represent industry at the European Patent Office, for example through the Sterling Advisory Committee (SACIP).

And also one of our representatives is representing Europe in the Industry Trilateral on patent harmonisation.  So the Industry Trilateral is the bringing together of industry in Japan, the US and Europe and it is ultimately an IP Federation policy advisor through the CBI, through Business Europe that represents European industry in those discussions and that is fantastic for us.

It works two ways.  We get that feedback from the meetings, from the horses' mouth and we can help enter into that dialogue… inside evidence and information, so yes… in terms of the value of this Federation, it has always been clear to me and it just continues to go from strength to strength.  I am very proud to be part of it.

Gordon: So you are convinced then that the primary goals, you know… what is a successful outcome on a particular issue, if you are… if you get involved?  I mean… obviously, the last year or so, you have been very heavily involved in all of the lobbying around the impact of Brexit on IOP in the UK, you know… what is your starting point when you approach an issue like that?

Scott: I think evidence (laughs).  It is clear to us that to have any impact at all, one needs evidence of the impact, or evidence of the potential proposal, whatever the proposal happens to be.  And the IP Federation has learnt, over its 100 years, evidence is king, in a sense.  And it has to be credible and it has to be real and you know you cannot fake evidence, it is either real or it is not.

So our perspective has been where a problem, an issue, a challenge or a policy situation arises that we want to have a stake in and enter into the dialogue for, we need to start from a point of view that says we cannot… we do not just explain what we think is right because it benefits us personally and directly.  We want to see what is right from an entire cross‑sectoral perspective because, of course, we cannot… you know we are not just here to advocate for pharma or telecoms, we are here to advocate for all of industry.

So first of all we have to recognise the benefit of whatever position it is we are condoning is across all our sectors, because we do often operate on the basis of consensus frankly.  And then, secondly, we need to be able to demonstrate that that is the case, so examples recently… you mentioned Brexit and Brexit is not… you know Brexit per say is not a huge intellectual property issue for our members.  There are specific issues, we have the issue of access to the EU IPO for example which was clearly affected by Brexit.  But on the whole, if you take patents and the fact that the UK government has been able to make porting of rights into UK law.  You know… there is a tempering of the impact.

But it is what comes next where we have seen some challenges and, in particular, trade discussions.  I mean the phenomenal opportunity to enter trade deals internationally comes with an additional challenge which is that trade deals usually include intellectual property provisions and so we have an interest in making sure we understand those and we help the stakeholders and the governments what is and is not maybe appropriate to do in those trade deals and evidence is always key for that.

One of the most important… it is important to have evidence, but is also the most challenging thing to do (laughs) because getting financial numbers, for example, together from a suite of 45 companies who… it is proprietary information so you are trying to get a suite of companies to give you evidence and then you cannot really share it.  So that is always a challenge as well.

So we collaborate with other stakeholders, so we have worked with CIPA this year in preparing an impact assessment on one particular issue in relation to trade deals.  We employed the services of Tony Clayton, who is a former Chief Economist at the IPO to do some work for us and CIPA, bringing together publically available information to build a compelling case so that the government could see a particular policy position.  We take the sense behind it and hopefully take on board all of that information to make you know… to sort of start moving the linear in slightly different directions, like turning an oil tanker, sometimes.  But it is what we do, it is our day job (laughs) in the IP Federation.

Gordon: I am aware of certainly some of the effectively lobbying that has gone on this year and the evidence that based approach and it certainly appears to have worked in a number of cases.  You know… with it being in a time of change, what would you say is the biggest challenge facing UK based IP owners right now.  You have indicated that Brexit may not be that much of a challenge, COVID does not appear to have adversely affected IP particularly, it is still… rights are still be registered and patents, trademarks and the like.  What are the biggest challenges do you think facing the IP world now?

Scott: Well I think there are two, I think and I have thought about this for some time because it surprised many that Brexit was not… I mean Brexit has its impacts as I have mentioned, but it surprised many that Brexit was not a phenomenal challenge.

COVID was an interesting one because although IP and COVID might not overlap it seems, but the thing with COVID is that many businesses that are and have been fundamental to addressing the COVID challenge this year, are businesses which are rich in innovation and rich in intellectual property and there has always been a sense in the public dialogue and in the public discourse… a sense of uncertainty about how IP plays in the case of crisis and you know I have been very clear that… you know some business models just do not work if you cannot protect your intellectual property and I take pharma as a perfect example.

You know, investing that much time effort and money in producing pharmaceuticals even outside of a crisis is not something that anybody would find worthwhile to do if they were not able to actually enjoy ownership of the resulting product.  So, where we are today, is a product of that system, of that intellectual property system.  The very fact that we have pharma companies able to, with the resources they have, to engage in new innovations, in testing new innovations in vaccination.  That is a project of the IP system.

But in terms of… so COVID, yes, it has been a challenge because of the public perception for some extent and we have hopefully helped with that to some extent.  But I think there are definitely two main issues at the moment.  The first is trade, as I just mentioned, and it comes as a surprise to most, but I do think that this potential unsettling of IP provisions domestically because of pressures arising from bilateral trade discussions is a challenge and as I have said we are very much on board with that.

The second and you have alluded to it already, is technological advance, the fourth industrial revolution as we like to call it in computer science and what not.  It is bound to have an impact on how one sees intellectual property, how intellectual property owners protect, recognise and advocate for their property.  So we are talking artificial intelligence which we have discussed, internet things, devices, what we call… you call it block change, the stupid transactional data bases – I like to call them.

These technologies, they generate a lot of data, they generate a lot of new insights.  You have technology that is doing stuff it has never done before, you know – learning for itself and the IP system is being tested at its edges, on the fringes here.  Data is a really good example actually because you have IOT, an internet of things devices spread all over the place, generating phenomenal volumes of data which you know individual items of data may seem worthless but when you put all this data together that you have amassed, you can have some phenomenal volume… real value.  It can be used to train AI on networks, it can be used to mine for new insights and there are real challenges.

Who owns this data?  Who has the right to use this data?  How can this data be applied?  If the data is applied, who owns the valuable product that is of its application?  So, who owns the training AI, that was trained based on massive volumes of data?  These are challenges.  These are questions.  I do not the answers for these just now but that is the sort of threat.  That, along with trade, I think are the sort of threats to the balance of the IP system that we are seeing at the moment and as I said earlier we have keep remaining grounded and look at it I think from first principles.  I think that approach of going back to first principles all the time is the helpful approach for these issues.

Gordon: I think taking a step back and looking at things is definitely, you know, in… from taking a helicopter view is definitely worth doing.  I mean, there is always a risk to businesses as technology evolves in the IP world finds solutions in like little micro new sui generis rights, whether it is to protect data or aspects of tech.  But, you know, it must warm your heart as someone who has worked in the tech world all their life to see that now everything is emerging around technology.  So we have FinTech, Financial Services Technology; we have Meditech, wearable technology; we have Real Estate tech.

You know everything is sort of coming together and I do feel… I had this discussion with Ulrika from WIPO.  We may need to step back and take a new look at the landscape and say well "you might need to redesign some of our rights a little bit in order to cater for this new world" – do you agree with that?

Scott: I do and what is really telling… an area of economics that I have taken a personal interest in is the balance between tangible versus intangible investment and I do not know if you follow this?  I do, it is sort of a sad side line of mine, but around… between 2012 and 2015, I believe there was a switch.  The investment by business in the UK switched from being substantially majority tangible, so equipment, machines, vehicles, that sort of stuff to intangible.

So essentially, the stuff that is protected in intellectual property and trade secrets and that switched to a place around the middle of sort of 2010/2020 and that a real shift.  And when you look at the individual sectors you can see that the sectors that that is really true for increasingly, are financial services, are meditech.  Okay those are the sectors that okay, you might think… well yes, naturally those sectors are dependent on intangibles.  But then you have got other sectors where this is also growing, the manufacturing sector has an increasing investment in intangibles.

Now, again technology innovations, it would be common sense, but the fact that the overall number is now or was balanced towards intangibles was fascinating insight.  And another thing… it has switched back a bit now and I do not know if that is because of the effects of maybe Brexit or COVID, certainly COVID, but we now have more tangible investment than intangible.  But it is definitely… the lines are playing with each other… toying with each other.  And it really emphasises that high tech and its application to various sectors in new ways like drug discovery, AI application discovery.  It does warm my heart and I do find it encouraging and I do think that therefore we have got to keep our IP system relevant for that.

So whether it is sui generis rights or it is just acknowledging the first principles of the existing rights, or a combination of both and making small adaptations where necessary, we need to be on top of it, definitely.

Gordon: Now, let me swing round and change tack a little bit.  Right at the very beginning in your opening comments you dropped a little hint about my next question.  Because I know that diversity and social mobility are topics that are very close to your heart and, indeed, close to the IP Federation, so first of all why do you think it is important to see an improvement within social mobility within the IP professions?

Scott: Well, it will not come as a surprise that social mobility is close to my heart, because… I mean I do not like to talk about myself too much but I am an ex-council house kid from South Wales and you know… a good portion of my upbringing was in a single parent family and I am the product of a state education.  As you heard earlier, I only went to University because IBM paid for it.

So, it is… I would not change any of that though for the world.  I have grown to recognise that privilege is generally not a useful indicator of the potential contribution that a young person can make, in whatever it is they go on to do.  And there are some incredibly bright young people out there who maybe do not enjoy the privilege of some others and that is a real shame.

And so I have a natural inclination towards helping in that area.  But when you then go further and think about my profession, the patent attorney profession which as you know I kind of fell into ultimately.  It has got some stereotypes associated with it so stereotypically the patent attorney is you know… forgive me for using a stereotype, is a white middleclass male predominantly, often with a higher degree, very often with degrees from very small subset of universities, Oxford, Cambridge, the Russell group universities.

And so this is often seen as a stereotype in among the profession.  But the reality is and the really awesome organisation of this IP inclusive helps us see this… the reality is that is not a stereotype, it is actually reality.  Okay, because according to IP inclusive surveys I think more than 90% of our profession is white.  More than 80% are middleclass and by middleclass, these people were never eligible for free school meals like many others were.  Nearly three‑quarters are male and over half went to Russell group universities so…And Russell group universities are hard to get into statistically for those from less privileged backgrounds.

So I see this stereotype as being real, it is an actual type (laughs) and it is really unfortunate.  And so, as much as I have this background that inclines me towards assisting with social mobility anyway, to then be in a profession where the sort of… people from backgrounds like mine would struggle would achieve gives me even more impetus to get involved and to help.  I think that the profession is somewhat dominated by privilege and that is a real shame.  Every bright young person not fitting that stereotype is a missed opportunity.

And, as I said to my colleagues at the IP Federation, it is simply not good enough, it is just simply not good enough.  And we have resolved… it did not take much convincing.  We have other members of the IP Federation, who have very similar backgrounds to my own, immediately on board and all other member representatives immediately saw the value of this initiative, so there was no need to discuss it.  We have resolved to challenge the state of affairs I think… is it in a nutshell.

Gordon: Okay, so as a matter of practicality, what is IP Federation going to do to promote these causes?

Scott: Oh absolutely, I mean we do not just talk about it.  So we… as I said a moment ago, we have worked with IP Inclusive and IP Inclusive is phenomenal, Andrea Brewster has done some amazing work through that organisation.  And so we went to IP inclusive to gain some guidance, I suppose, on how one cannot just talk about inclusion diversity, but also make a difference and Andrea helped us.  She put us in touch with charities, helped us to understand how events can help, helped us see what the problems are that need to be addressed.

And the problems really for the patent attorney profession, to take a specific example, are knowing what stops people from less privileged backgrounds from coming into our profession.  That is the problem in a nutshell.  So earlier this year, even in the context of a lockdown, early in 2020, we had a diversity and inclusion round the table, which was attended by some really quite senior people from a whole range of organisations involved in intellectual property.

We had Tim Moss from the Intellectual Property office, the CEO; we had representatives from IPReg, the regulator; and many organisations that are keenly involved at a very senior level.  And we broke out into break‑out groups and we resolved to come up with very tangible actions that we could take to make a real difference.  And you know every break‑out group came back with something that we could actually do and then every break‑out group committed to pursue at least one of those ideas.  And they ranged from relatively straightforward things like raising knowledge and understanding.  It is remarkable how fascinating the job of patent attorney or a trade marker or any other… or IP solicitor is.  It is really interesting.

I mean, when I talk to young people about being a patent attorney and I effectively boil it down to working with inventors on cool ideas every day.  That is pretty much what it is (laughs) and you know… kids get that, that is kind of fun.  Okay, there is a lot more to it than that and we can come onto that in a moment but, for now, think about the inventors and think about the cool tech.  So it is about that widening access to understanding that.

And then we acknowledge that the education, it is a bit south eastern focussed in the UK.  So, by that, I mean if you wanted to do one of the post graduate certificates in IP law for example, you are generally looking at mainly universities in the south east of the UK.  So we just thought "why is that?  Why can't we have…?"  Because people with less money frankly cannot travel (laughs).  Okay, people with less money – they might need to attend a university close to home and so it should be possible to do that.  Or, and we have seen recently, remote learning, you know, it works, it is phenomenal.  So we are exploring that with academic institutions and seeing whether we can improve that.

And then there are really challenging issues that we wanted to make a tangible change and effect on like bias.  Bias and recruitment.  So, we recognise… and this is not conscious bias, I am not talking about discrimination.  I think every organisation I have worked with in IP is fairly wholesome.  Okay IP law firms, the industry departments, all the associations – they are not discriminating.  But there are latent unconscious biases within us that can cause challenges when it comes to questions of recruitment and it is really unfortunate because we are not even aware of them most of the time.

And we really need… we have all got them and we need to address them, I think.  So we recognise that that is another challenge.  You know, it is really challenging to address that, because how you even spot these unconscious biases, because they are unconscious by their very nature.  But then, better than that, how you can address them and avoid them in… for example in recruitment activities… is something that we are looking at very closely.  And, within the Federation, we are looking at unconscious bias training for our members as a start, to rolling that out going forward.

And then you know… at the other end of this spectrum, I suppose there are really bold ideas like "how you would change getting into the profession in the first place".  I mean is there… we take inspiration from the legal services professions.  How there have been some really effective changes of late to how you might a lawyer in the UK, may be apprenticeships, may be changing to the qualification routes.  You know, these are just discussions.  I think just having the dialogue on these issues is useful.

Gordon: Yes, it is interesting that you say that, because apprenticeship has certainly raised its head again and it is only like turning the clock back 60 years, because when I first joined this firm, it was Wragge & Co when I joined it, the firm that I am still at now, our senior partner had not graduated, he did a six year apprenticeship to become a lawyer and that was perfectly normal.  More years ago than I care to think about now, I used to be in charge of our graduate recruitment and one of the things I did at the time was to say "if you limit what you are doing to universities, then you have already missed the first step on this ladder".  Because, as you said yourself, not everybody gets to university and the opportunities are limited.

So we used to go into the schools and try and sort of sell the notion of the legal profession generally to school kids and make it interesting and funky and try and get them you know keen on driving down that road.  And, of course, when you then narrow that down to IP and, as you said yourself, it was an IP patent that said you were ahead of the cutting edge, I would have thought that is a great message to take to sort of 14, 15, 16 year olds who might be thinking about the future a little bit by that stage and would find that exciting.

Scott: Absolutely, and you know that… the IP Federation has really impressed me this year because one of its… you have asked for tangible things we do… this year we committed to support an awesome charity that Andrea Brewster of IP Inclusive put us in contact with, called In2scienceUK.  So In2science specifically targets young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to give them work placements in STEMs – science, technology, engineering and mathematics companies and organisations and it has done this for hundreds of young people every year and we have partnered up with them and we are helping them with that both, you know, financially but also practically and we have just been so impressed with the work they do.

Even through this lockdown they have maintained their objective of getting hundreds of young people through that… and it opens the eyes of these people… because these young people, they come from… they generally… I mean, free school meals is a useful indicator of being from a disadvantaged background, okay.  So they generally have a very large proportion of the young people who they work with are receiving free school meals which is an unfortunate way of tagging.

But then more than 80% of them have come from families where there is no experience of higher education at all and so that is you know… it has been really valuable to see that work and to see it continue through the lockdown.  But the point you made just then about university is interesting because… and I take a great personal interest in this because I am an examiner for the European qualifying exam, the European patent attorneys and the enrolment criteria for that exam include a requirement that a candidate has undertaken a full time course for their undergraduate degree and I have a real problem with that.

Because if you have come from a maybe… a less advantaged background, the chances of you having gone straight into university from school are less than they would be if you are from a more privileged background.  And you may come to your higher education at a much later stage in life and that may mean that you do it part time.  Now, if you are studying maths or physics or chemistry or engineering, you are no less a graduate of those subjects because you studied part time and I have always had a problem (laughs) with why the criteria for enrolment for the EQE require a full time degree.

So it is… the point you make about getting them… getting access to these people as youngsters, but then coupling back with the reality that people from disadvantaged backgrounds have a different route.  We really need to recognise this and we are actively lobbying for changing that sort of stipulation in the requirements.

Gordon: Now, we are having a (laughs) great conversation and time is ticking on.  There are a couple of things I would like to just run by you but let us move on to the last few questions if I may?  I am always one to try and get a bit of free consultancy when I can, so let me ask you this one.  You look back across the fence from the industry to the legal profession, you were in it once as a patent attorney in a private practice.  So whether it is solicitors or patent attorneys, what do you think the professions could do better to improve their service to the IP owning clients?

Scott: Right, yes.  Well, I mean, everyone can always improve but I think it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge that in the UK we have one of the best legal professions in the world.  I mean, it is world class, it is recognised as world class, it is effective and we also have a reliable judiciary.  So, we are working in a very high quality environment but that said, you know there is always opportunity to improve.  But I do want to acknowledge that, because that is important and I do not want to suggest that the legal services are seen as an industry as anything other than on par, if not above.

If there was one suggestion I would make, I suppose it would be in respect of commercial insight.  There is a senior fundamental challenge between law practices and industry which is that… you know law practices are business as well.  So law practices, of course, need to grow and succeed and to continue to provide best services and, in fact, industry depends on them succeeding, because without good successful law practices we do not have that rich highly experienced, highly qualified sets of expertise to draw upon.  So it is in our interests that they do really well.

And to do well in a law practice, of course, generally seniority comes with great experience, great client relationships, revenue generation in private practice.  That is how people grow in private practice.  Whereas in‑house I think seniority comes, not so much because we have no client experience, we do not have followings and we do not bill and so in‑house our experience comes from understanding strategy, understanding the industry's commercial realities, applying them to get good outcomes, only good outcomes from the advice we give and the relationships we have.

There is therefore a little bit of a disconnect because law practices will often struggle to justify bringing into their fold industry expertise that has got such rich insight into how industry and commerce and business works.  Because these people are maybe not as you know… they are not as suited to the law practice environment.  And yet that expertise is exactly what industry desperately needs.  I mean, it is the only reason, I suppose, that we always maintain an in‑house department (laughs) because we can then bring the extraordinary dedication and commitment and experience to the law practice to the commercial realities and the insights of the in‑house lawyer and the two together then sort of give you the perfect coupling.

But, yes, I suppose the one thing… I do not know how you solve this problem.  I wonder if maybe an increasing emphasis on secondments, even closer working, but if we could get that… because we need our lawyers to have… they need to be skilled negotiators, which in many cases they are, but in new contacts; influencers; policy setters and have that real insight into what we are worried about.

I know that lawyers, they acknowledge that sterile advice is not useful, they know that.  But I still see, quite regularly, requests for counsel and legal advice being met with relatively sterile advice and by that I mean advice that is actually completely factually correct on the basis of the position that has been presented, but kind of stops at the point where we really want it to start.  Which is "you have given me the legal analysis and that is phenomenal" and I think "we could have done that ourselves" but what we really want to know is "what actually can we do (laughs)?  What is it that is beneficial for us to do?

But I make that observation in the context of us having probably the world's best legal services sector, so please take it in that context.

Gordon: I certainly do and that is a message, I think, that has been conveyed to the legal profession many times down the years.  As you said, secondments I think are valuable, sector specialisation is also valuable.  There are ways we can address it, but it is something that needs to be kept in mind.  Right, last question.  What next for IP Federation and what next for you?

Scott: Oh, well, the IP Federation… I mean the challenge is daily.  There are always new challenges and I am confident that we will keep abreast.  I would not say you know… we are not maintaining the status quo, we are always watching and always responding.  So, it is a bit like a machine that is running at very high RPM and I am confident that it is going to remain in that state of readiness.

We are keen to grow our membership.  Absolutely every additional member we get in the IP Federation… Justin Richards, our expertise… the great thing about our membership is that every member has an equal say so you have as much influence and insight whether you are a new member or an existing, or an incumbent.  And it allows us to enrich what we understand are the concerns of an even greater diversity of sectors and of businesses and you know… actually every new member gives us additional influence, because the bigger we are, the more say that we will be perceived, at least, to have.

So I think from the IP Federation's point of view, growing our membership and continuing to address those challenges on an on‑going basis is naturally going to be our core objectives.

For me personally, you know I am a patent attorney, I will always be a patent attorney, I will continue drafting, I will always be drafting.  I am never going to be one of those attorneys who suddenly stops drafting pattern applications (laughter), I have committed to that, prosecution hearings – that is my bread and butter.  I am really keen to play around with the AI issue and the intercept with IP, so you probably see me in that sphere coming up.

And I think in that respect I am really keen to maybe affiliate with an academic institution because it will help me drive policy and also maybe expire the next generation of IP attorneys.  So that is maybe where I am looking next, but certainly exciting times, absolutely.

Gordon: Well they are.  I love the fact that after so many years in the profession your enthusiasm is completely undimmed.

Scott: Absolutely.

Gordon: Scott, thank you so much for being my guest today and thank you for airing your views and thoughts with me and our audience.

Scott: Absolute pleasure.

Gordon: And I will be back soon with another one of these conversations with leading lights in the IP world but for now, thank you very much to everybody for watching or listening and for your interest and attention and thanks once again to Scott.  Thank you.