This week we are publishing the first part of an interview we conducted with Dr Rachel Daniel and Ed Clarke from IP21, a leading law firm specialising in intellectual property services. They told us why building a sustainable IP portfolio is important to protect start-ups’ innovation, and how IP21 helps entrepreneurs succeed and gain competitive advantage. You can follow IP21 on LinkedIn.
IL: IP21 is a very well-established firm specialising in a range of intellectual property services. Could you describe the ins-and-outs of what you do?
IP21: The core of our work is in helping our clients obtain worthwhile protection for their innovations, product designs and branding using the IP system. A key value-add for us is helping our clients build a strategy for building a sustainable IP portfolio over time, in tune with their commercial strategies, needs and resources.
What if you want to be sustainable and conscientious of your purchases and the life choices you make, but don’t know where to start? It can be difficult to see through all the greenwashing, of which many retailers and manufacturers are culpable.
Mary Liu and Caroline Williams, founders of junee
We had the great pleasure to chat with Caroline Williams who told us how she and Mary Liu invented a sustainable reusable packaging system for take-away food. This makes re-use as easy as single-use, which in turn led them to start their own company, junee…
Caroline and Mary met during their studies at London Business School (LBS), bonding over sharing sustainable living tips. Over the countless lunches they ate on campus, they discovered an interesting phenomenon - they were willing to spend extra money on things like sustainably sourced produce and refillable toiletries, but even when they were effectively paid to bring our own reusable container with a BYO discount provided by the LBS canteen, they didn’t do it. Why?