UK government announces IP education goal

The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has put raising awareness of patent and trademark rights among young people at the centre of its corporate plan.

In the IPO Corporate Plan 2015 - 2018, published today (March 24), the office set out its mission to re-design the Cracking Ideas website with an online hub that provides better resources to both teachers and young people to inform them about intellectual property rights.

Cracking Ideas is an IPO administered website that aims to increase awareness of IP among children. The website covers all aspects of IP.

The new website will operate from the same domain name crackingideas.com and has a target of increasing web traffic by at least 7.5%. The re-design will partly be funded by the Office of Harmonization in the Internal Market.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe, the UK IP minster, said: “If our budding innovators and entrepreneurs can maximise the value of their work in a society that respects IP, the UK will continue to lead the world in innovation and creativity.

“It is for this reason that one of the targets I have agreed for this year is the design and launch of a new online educational hub, as part of a drive to make IP an integrated part of our education system, from the first days at school right through to graduation day,” she added.

In addition, the IPO intends to improve the electronic system for handling patent and trademark applications.

Last year, the IPO said there was a 5% increase in trademark applications and that the number of applications is expected to increase over the next three years. The office seeks to address this increase in demand by making the electronic search system more user-friendly.