Entrepreneurs Boosting UK Innovation Culture, Says IP Office

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

07 June 2007

Commenting this week as it launched a new innovation project aimed at the nation's school children, the UK Intellectual Property Office suggested that inventors with big ideas are helping to create a nation of innovators, according to new figures.

Figures from the IP Office show that in the first three months of this year, almost 30% of all patent applications came from individual innovators - many of them entrepreneurs looking to build a business on the back of their invention.

Although the majority of patent applications have traditionally come from companies and research teams, individuals who have come up with an idea on their own are proving to be an increasingly important part of the UK's innovation culture.

In total, more than 1,800 individuals put in an application for a patent in the first quarter of this year.

Science and Innovation Minister, Malcolm Wicks, observed that it was important that innovation was in the public eye, citing the success of entrepreneurial television programmes such as 'Dragon's Den' as part of the reason behind the increase in the number of individual inventors coming forward.

He announced that: “Britain remains a nation of inventors, taking their ingenuity from the garden shed to commercial success."

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