Today, 26 April, is a significant date for us: it's World IP Day!
Recognised across the globe, the day is an opportunity for people to celebrate how intellectual property (IP) helps to enable innovation that drives human progress.
Marking the day each year increases general awareness of what IP is, and how it's changing the world we live in.
Creativity and innovation
At HLK, our teams of patent and trademark attorneys are privileged to work with some remarkable people, helping our clients to nurture and defend their creativity, and to protect and amplify their innovative ideas. Together, our combined dedication to innovation has a profound impact on our collective future.
Driving sustainable innovation with IP
We recognise the vital role intellectual property plays in achieving the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through our work, we're actively contributing to a number of these goals, helping visionaries to address global challenges and achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.
In the spirit of World IP Day 2024, we're proud to highlight some outstanding examples of the innovations our expert teams have supported, showcasing how intellectual property empowers inventors, creators, and entrepreneurs to make a difference.
Nesting innovation for urban biodiversity
Our Engineering and Environment team supported a client to obtain patents for bird and bat boxes which can be built seamlessly into brick walls. An award-winning invention, these homes for wildlife are used extensively by many commercial developers to enhance biodiversity in new developments.
Providing bird houses is hugely important for giving birds, such as house sparrows who have suffered a serious decline in recent times, the best chance of rearing their young and surviving the winter in as safe an environment as possible. Moreover, many studies over the years have proven a link between audible bird song and good mental health!
SDGs supported: Sustainable cities and communities | Responsible consumption and production
Pioneering gene therapy for blood disorders
The Chemistry and Life Sciences team at HLK worked on the European patent for an invention underlying CASGEVY", the first CRISPR gene-editing therapy to be approved in the world. CASGEVY", is a therapeutic to treat sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia.
Not only will this treatment be used to treat debilitating blood disorders with significant unmet need, but the approval marks a new dawn in gene therapy. The approval by UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency hopefully paves the way for many more therapies using the ground‑breaking CRISPR gene-editing technology, especially in a hard-to-treat conditions.
Read our article to find out more about this historic development, and our involvement
SDGs supported: Good health and wellbeing
Safer drinking water
This invention relates to a three-part water treatment system. There's a treatment assembly, with a filter for filtering water, a base assembly and a UV reactor, which further decontaminates water after it's been filtered. The system is likely to be used in homes, where the water treatment system is connected to a conventional home water supply, to enable additional filtering before drinking.
A great benefit of this invention is that it can provide clean, filtered water even when the water supplied may come from contaminated sources.
The filter serves to remove particulates from the water, and the UV radiation supplied by the UV reactor after the filtering process safeguards the water from harmful bacteria. UV treatment is an economical, chemical-free and environmental way of making water safe for human consumption.
SDGs supported: Clean water and sanitation
Eco-optimised computing
Our Tech team has supported an invention that ultimately facilitates reduced energy consumption in data processing centres. The technique cuts energy requirements of computing workloads, such as the need for cooling, by optimising how processing tasks are allocated to specific data centres. As a result, the processing task can be performed by a data centre that either requires less computer cooling or uses a greater percentage of renewable energy, which means minimal strain on the local power grid.
What's more, this technology can benefit any industry which utilises distributed computer processing, and can be used to minimise the energy and environmental impact of computer processing operations.
Much of our daily lives relies on computer power at an increasing rate, especially since the rise in cloud based or AI led services. It's important to implement energy savings whenever possible, and consider how the energy used for processing can be made greener.
SDGs supported: Industry, innovation and infrastructure | Sustainable cities and communities | Responsible consumption and production
These are just a few examples of the work our patent and trademark attorneys undertake, helping the world's innovators to keep innovating.
Happy World IP Day!
Read more about World IP Day 2024.
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