Two IPs In A Pod
Brilliant inventions, fresh product designs, iconic brand names and artistic creativity are not only the building blocks of successful business - they deliver a better world for us all. But these valuable forms of intellectual property must be protected in order to flourish. We are the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys - the UK's largest intellectual property organisation. Our hosts Lee Davies and Gwilym Roberts chat with entrepreneurs, creatives, patent attorneys and the occasional judge about how patents, trade marks, designs and copyright can improve our lives and solve problems for humanity.
Two IPs In A Pod
From Industry To Patent Office Director with Maja Schmitt
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A chemist hears a patent attorney speak and sees a future. Years later, that same attorney is directing a national patent office and helping rewrite how innovation gets protected. This conversation with Maja Schmitt travels from labs and in‑house roles to China and The Hague, and lands on a bold policy move: the Netherlands is returning to examined national patents after years of registration-only grants.
Cold Open: Finding A Vocation
SPEAKER_04And all I remember was sitting there thinking, this is the job I want to do.
Host Banter And Travel Notes
SPEAKER_01Hey Gwim, how are you? Very well, thank you. How are you? Yeah, you had to think about that for a wee bit then, didn't you? I didn't get an immediate answer, which tells me that you might not be okay. Is there anything you want to share with me?
SPEAKER_02It's been a busy couple of days. I was in I was in the Netherlands yesterday, which is relevant to our guests at the moment, of course. Um, but I'm back, I'm in London now and we're recording in the morning, and I've had two meetings already, so it's uh a busy day. Bit of a whistle stop morning, yeah. It's amazing though. Yesterday, when I flew to the Netherlands, I didn't get there till four o'clock in the afternoon. And when I flew back, I got here at eight o'clock in the morning. I don't understand. And I felt but I felt same same kind of travel plans pretty much. So I don't think the time difference is that big. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's um that's impressive.
SPEAKER_01Uh anything anything interesting you want to talk about, or shall we um?
SPEAKER_02Your bounce. Have we talked about your your number plate on your car? Have we done that one? I don't know whether we've talked about the number plate on my car. Let's talk about it again just in case it's um Lee. What's the number plate on your car?
SPEAKER_01It's CEO 9 Lee. And the nine the nine means nothing at all except you've got to have a number in it, obviously. So um because I couldn't I couldn't afford a really expensive made-to-measure number plate, so I had to go for one that I could that worked for me. And I it wasn't the intention to get it CEO, honest. I was just after one that said Lee, because I thought I'd quite like Lee on the car. And the one of the first ones that came up was C E 09 Lee, and it was like, ah, God's made for me.
SPEAKER_02So do you get special attention like with valet parking? Oh, it's a CEO, I'll put his car in a really good place. Is that helping?
SPEAKER_01Uh no, what I do get, I need to be I I need to be much more careful with my driving now and not get angry at people and things like that because obviously I'm easily found.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a memorable number play, you know. It's a memorable number play, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So uh yeah, and I yes, I'm just I'm aware that I need to be on my best behaviour. Not that I'm never not on my best behaviour, but I'm sort of extra aware that I need to be a good driver. I'm sure you're always a good driver. Yeah, I think I am. I think I am. On with the show.
Introducing Maya And Dutch Geography
SPEAKER_00Lee Davis and Willem Roberts are the two MIPs in a pod, and you will listen to a podcast on intellectual property brought to you by the Chartered Institute of Pattern attorneys.
SPEAKER_01So um we've got a guest from now, I'm gonna say from the Netherlands. Um, Maya, you will tell me whether that's right or not. Because I I still, despite the fact that I try and understand geography, I'm Gwen Moses, I'm not very good on geography, and I don't really understand sort of like the Netherlands, Low Countries, Holland kind of conundrum. So I'm sure you can explain this that to us. Welcome to the podcast. Tell us a wee bit about yourself.
SPEAKER_04Thank you very much. And uh as said, I'm completely starstruck because uh living in the Netherlands and obviously cycling, it's a good way to entertain yourself is to listen to podcasts. And uh you are on the definitely on the list of podcasts. I have to say, along with infinite monkey cage. So um wow is a good company. Good company, a mix between the two. Well, really, yeah, where to start?
Career Path Across UK, China, Netherlands
SPEAKER_04The the lowlands, that's a long discussion, and what we have is that the country itself is the Netherlands, and the Netherlands is actually the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which means we also have some islands in the Caribbean, which is really handy because during uh COVID times we could actually fly out to the Caribbean because it was an internal flight, so it has its benefits. Um, Holland does two provinces we have North and South Holland, and if you say to the whole country that it's Holland, you can wind people up.
SPEAKER_01So I don't recommend I'll I'll remember that one. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04Um, yeah, and for myself, I've now been in the Netherlands for longer than I've lived anywhere else, I have to be honest. So I got transferred, I was working in the UK, the company I was working for got bought by a Dutch company, and I transferred across with all my files, 13 boxes of patent files, and then started working in the south of the Netherlands in Limburg, and then uh got the opportunity to spend four years working in China, also in IP. Definitely not a contradiction in terms. From there back to the Netherlands, this time to the north. So I'm now uh living in the Hague area, which is great because I can actually see where the beach is from the office, and I can cycle there in half an hour from home. And uh yeah, I've ended up. This is a bit of a long story, but during corona times, the company I was working for in industry decided to split, and we decided we didn't really want to move again. So we said, right, time to look around. What else is there in The Hague for patent attorneys? There's obviously private practice, there's some industry, and purely by chance, I spotted a position at the Netherlands Patent Office, and I joined the Netherlands Patent Office as a team manager. And in the last three months, I've taken on the role of being director of the Netherlands Patent Office.
Poacher Turned Gamekeeper: Switching Sides
SPEAKER_01Amazing. So we have a phrase in the UK, you might have a similar phrase uh in the Netherlands of um poacher turned gamekeeper. Uh so do you feel do you feel like you've done that? You've stepped, you've stepped across to the other side of the fence, and now you're um yeah, looking at things from a different perspective.
SPEAKER_04Definitely, sorry. That that's one of the most interesting things about this job is actually seeing it from the other side. I hadn't anticipated. If someone would have said to me, go work for government, I'd have gone, no way, I'm an industry kid. That's where I did my training, that's where I grew up, that's where I worked as an attorney. Absolutely loved it for me. It's always been it's a vocation, it's not just a job. And then to say, okay, now you know you're stepping across to the other side, you think, okay, but actually it's super exciting because you get involved in writing the law. And in the Netherlands, we're in the fortunate position of we are finally going back to having an examined patent after quite a long time of having an unexamined patent. And uh the law has been written, and it's so cool to think that, hey, I have had an influence because I saw some of the articles and went, guys, um, let's think about the practicality. How do we carry this out as an office? And then to think you are actually being listened to by the lawmakers in this process.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That is really
Learning Government And Stakeholder Dynamics
SPEAKER_02cool. Yeah, yeah. You find that you know too much, too little for this role? Because sometimes you can come in knowing too much, and that can be that can get in the way, but sounds like it's about the right balance.
SPEAKER_04Um, at the beginning, when I joined, is a really good question, actually. But when I joined as a team manager, I definitely knew too much because I think they expected me to come in as a team manager to lead the team. And the team I was leading are the IT people who run the backbone of the office. They are the lawyers who do restoration, the finance group. Um, and uh then also more recently, we have the UPC clerks who have also landed at the Netherlands Patent Office. And they're knowing too much, you can quickly step on people's toes because they're going, What are you doing? mixing yourself into everything, you know, and always taking over every meeting. And I've really had to learn to sit on my hands, let them do the bit. I am the escalation point. But on the other hand, I could also very quickly say, Have you thought about and you know, bring in additional points? And also, have you thought about it from the perspective of the attorney? You know, we have great ideas of things we can bring in, but in practice, how will it work? There it's it's really helped having the insight of attorneys. I mean, if even if it's down to how do attorneys use smart cards before they were phased out, and then having to explain, I know exactly that they end up sitting in a box on the table with the pin numbers on the back. So all this security we try to build in is a bit of a waste of time.
SPEAKER_02No, I've I've I'm fascinated also by, I mean, the presumably also you're now dealing with government in an entirely new way, as in kind of you know, you're you're part of a larger government organization. We know over here that you know we have a minister for IP, and our IPO, I guess, is accountable to the minister. And so there's this kind of stuff we don't see from our side of it in terms of upwards and outwards from the your pattern office into the into the bigger government.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. And uh that's also been a big learning curve, is that you re you have to work out who are you playing with in this game. So we report in to the Ministry of Economic Affairs when it comes to how are we set up, what is the law. But within the Ministry of Economic Affairs, there's of course also a whole echelon of people. And the nearest and dearest in that group are people who are lawyers, who have studied intellectual property, have worked with intellectual property all their lives, and they are as committed to the topic. The minute you go one level up, you have people who are going, oh my god, I have the innovation portfolio, and there is this really awkward, special group, and I say this with air quotes, um, that is intellectual property that is instantly so deep and so into the content that it makes it very difficult for them to actually get a grasp on what are we trying to achieve and why is it important. So, one of the big things that you learn is you have to be able to do intellectual property in bite-sized chunks.
SPEAKER_02Presumably, also you've got a strong international element as well. You must, I mean, so I know again, I'm sorry, mostly based on my experience of our own IPO, who are international harmonization efforts, dealing with EPO. You mentioned the UPC there.
EPO Council, SMEs, SPCs, And Consensus
SPEAKER_02So I guess that's another angle that's maybe a bit different from previously.
SPEAKER_04It is, and I think that's what also makes it very interesting. I mean, you were talking about, you know, you had yesterday was actually one of those days that I think is really cool, why it is to be a director of a patent office, and that's the swearing in of new patent attorneys. So we had five new Netherlands attorneys joining the ranks, and they have to be registered and accepted by the Netherlands office to be able to practice in front of the office. So they're very strict on that one. And it's nice to be able to say to them, guys, you know, once you've gone through your 20 years of working in private practice or in industry, don't forget there is another career step where you can learn more and where you can do more, and where you can have a much bigger influence. So now, about apart from doing things like the Swereo attorneys, I also sit in the Administrative Council at the EPO, together with my counterpart from the Ministry of Economic Affairs. And there we're looking at how is the law changing? What are we doing with SMEs? What are we doing with SPCs? And it's always the same countries that come with similar arguments. But at the end, the idea is to have consensus driven. This is Europe, of course, and the beauty of Europe, is to say, where are we going? Where are we moving things? And by presenting the Netherlands view, I'm not allowed to present my own view. I have to first go to all the stakeholders and I have to get from them what is our joint view, and then that's how we prepare the pieces that we then present to the EPO. And the more countries do this, the more they work together, the more we influence what happens, because at the end of the day, we pay for the EPO to be there. So we have a strong voice, all of us as the countries at the EPO table have a strong voice there.
SPEAKER_02That's that's a topic close to my heart because um one of the things we really value in the UK is again our IPO delegation sits on the administrative council, which advises the EPO on all kinds of stuff, including law changes and practice changes. Um we really value the fact that our IPO consults with us. They they say what they have to say, but they certainly say you know the users' views when relevant and factor them into their kind of uh commentary that meant as a council. I guess you've got that relationship. You swear everybody in. I'm assuming you have the same relationship with the Dutch profession that you guys can get together if needs be and you can seek advice on that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and it's
Structured Consultation With Dutch IP Stakeholders
SPEAKER_04not just if needs be, we actually have them regularly in the calendar. So we know when the EPO council meetings are, so there's one in two weeks' time. So always one week before the European Council meeting, the EPO one, we sit down together with, we call them here the Commission of Eight, which sounds um like it's some from some movie. And when I first heard of it, I was very much like, whoa, the Commission. Um, but you're sitting there together with industry leaders, you're sitting there with the judges from the main courts, where of course the national patent cases are heard. You're also sitting there with the heads of the patent um firms uh are represented there. It's roughly a group of about 20, but there in a um safe, closed environment, everybody speaks freely and says, where do we think we're going? Where do we think we should be going? And then from that, we take the input that we have to take to the council. And then we also have, in the same way that you have SIPA, we have the order of Ochthoichemachtigden. And that again to me sounds great. It's like I have this real vision of, you know, we're going to be galloping in with our horses because it's the order. But there again, we sit together with them on yeah, two, three times a year, and they can say what they think about the patent office, they say what they think about the EPO. So, for example, there's this whole thing now about trying to address gender balance in patent attorneys. The EPO have a very nice program for that to encourage women to join the profession. And then they come to us and say, how do we then administer it, advertise it, make sure that we get people coming forward for the things that are being offered by the EPO? And these conversations are actually planned in six months in advance and they happen very regularly. So there's a whole machine behind the daily life of a patent attorney that I was blissfully unaware of when I was actually just doing the uh attorney work.
SPEAKER_02So we dived in deep more quickly than usual. Because normally we like a bit of backstory. He gave us a very potted backstory. You'll be worried to hear that I had some inside gossip on you from uh Rika Decker and Jessica Pacifico last night. I'll name check them so they know, but also don't worry because it was this is gonna be fun.
SPEAKER_04I know them both well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, they said they said you were fantastic, etc. etc. Um, you'll you've you've you've lived all over the place. You mentioned you've been in the Netherlands longer than anywhere else, but part you mentioned UK and China, but you didn't you come from Africa originally or something?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they briefed
Origin Story: Africa To UK To IP
SPEAKER_04you very well. Um the the potted history is is that as is also uh from my surname, maybe fairly obvious Schmidt, it's a good Germanic name. But my parents left Germany when I was two and they emigrated to South Africa. So they did the whole thing, you go on a ship, you pack up your life, and uh off you go, and you don't know what you're going to. Super brave, I think. I'm not sure I would do it that way. Um, they literally went with no job and uh made their way. And then from there, they spent three years in South Africa, then they moved to Zambia. So my childhood was growing up barefoot on the streets. Marvelous way to grow up. However, secondary schools in Zambia being what they are, the mine where my dad was working as an electrician said, right, we will give everybody a certain amount of money, you can send your kids off to boarding school. And if you choose an expensive school, you pay the difference, but it was enough to basically get to the UK or to South Africa. So you had this whole, if you imagine every three months you have all the uh the kids getting on a plane and heading off to boarding school, and that's what I did, and that's how I ended up in the UK because my mum was very wise, said, if you're gonna have your um education in a language, it should be English. English is the working language of the world. So, much to the family's disgust in Germany, it was I was packed off to school in the UK, and uh I basically spent uh very many happy years from 11 onwards in the Lechworth area, so just outside London. And then, of course, from there you naturally go university um studying, and also I was working, um, I was doing my PhD, and that's where it was very interesting because we had a really good professor who said, Right, you guys need to know what you can do as chemists with your life, because you know, you think it might just be lab work, but there is a lot more you can do. And he brought in a patent attorney from ICI, and this patent attorney spoke, and all I remember was sitting there thinking, This is the job I want to do. Because it was that great mixture between science and legal and words and playing and playing chess, you know, because it's all about that game that you play at the end of the day. And I just sat there and thought, This is it, this is what I want to do. It took a little while to get in, so I did like many, you know, you first go through the research route. And apparently, my first day in the job working at Smith and Nephew, I was introduced to the head of the patent department, and I went, How do I get in here? And he laughed and said, This is your first day, you know. What are you doing? And I was like, This is what I want to do. And I was like, Yeah, okay. So off I went and then spent um 18 months at the bench doing research. And then one day I got a phone call from the IP department saying there's a vacancy for a trainee, and the rest is history.
A Patent Attorney Leads A Patent Office
SPEAKER_04So I yes, uh, I cut my teeth really in UK industry, and that's culturally where I feel very much at home. If somebody says, Where am I from?
SPEAKER_02And you're a CEPA member, you charge a patent.
SPEAKER_04I am, yes, yes, still am. I still pay my dues as an overseas member. At the moment, I have to be honest, as a non-practicing overseas member because as a director of the patent office, I am not allowed to be practicing.
SPEAKER_02Understood. I feel like you've seen quite a lot of IP in your own way, though.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Let's state that very clearly. Lee because I think it's really cool. The director of the Netherlands Patent Office is a chartered patent attorney. I'm personally super proud to be a co-member of something like that. That's wonderful.
SPEAKER_04Well, I'm I'm intrigued to know whether anybody else has kind of followed this route because I don't meet very many heads of offices who have taken the patent attorney route. In fact, I haven't met any yet. So if you ever come across one, I would like to be connected to them. And anybody listening to this podcast, please connect.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I was I was gonna say, Maya, that I think so I was I was having a little think about whether I knew it of anyone else that had followed that route, and I can't think of anyone. So it feels it feels quite exceptional, but also it feels not not that I'm criticizing at all those who run uh IP offices who come through that kind of um administrative, uh sort of technocratic kind of background, but it feels quite natural and the
Why Return To Examined Patents
SPEAKER_01right thing to do, doesn't it? It just it just feels like it's a good fit.
SPEAKER_04I have to say I love it. I mean, it's um it's one of those ones where you can sit there and you think, I know my topic. Uh, I am no longer obviously the most deep into the nitty-gritty of what happens in a particular bit of case law. But when it comes to sparring, when it comes to restoration, when we're talking about how do we make the systems run, it's really helped me actually having the background.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. See that.
SPEAKER_02I want to do a whole separate podcast on what it's like going from Zambia to Lechworth. At some point.
SPEAKER_04Worse. Worse, I think, is going from yeah, going from the Netherlands to China was actually okay, but coming back from China after four years and reintegrating back into the Netherlands, that was tough. You can definitely do a podcast on that one.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's interesting. Oh, more about so you look, I gather you did quite a good job of learning Chinese while you were there, I was hearing.
SPEAKER_04I did a little bit. I did enough to be able to uh tell a taxi driver where we're going. And um, yeah, ordering food on the menu was interesting, so I could recognize the characters from which animal is it, but I wouldn't necessarily be able to tell you which part of the animal it is. And that, of course, in a Chinese context, can be very important to know which part you're actually eating.
SPEAKER_02I get that. That's interesting. Yeah, I think but that's interesting how you've you've moved around, you settle on the Netherlands. It's um I mean my firm has an office there, we love it, we love the people there. So I mean it seems like a lovely place to end up. But I didn't see it on your list of places that you would naturally have gone to. I guess it was the business move that took you there, that's right, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04It was, yeah. It was the company I was working for. So I was at that time I was working for Well, it was ICI, then became Zenica, then split out into Avicia. And the the listeners who know the the UK industry will be very familiar with those. And um effectively a small chunk of Avicia was sold off. And because they already had a Dutch company, that Dutch company then got sold to a bigger Dutch company. And it's DSM
Implementing Examination: Law, IT, People
SPEAKER_04was at that point the equivalent of the ICI, but for the Netherlands. And then it was a natural, I got a phone call one night saying we're in the middle of due diligence, and would you like to go across and be part of the package that's being sold? And it's kind of one of those ones that freaks you out because you're like, whoa. And then on the other hand, you go, Well, at home we had been talking about going and working abroad, and it's much easier to do it if you already have a job, or at least if one of you already has a job. And then the other one is okay, having to look, but you know that you're, you know, you know you can settle. And that's how the transfer happened. So it was uh yeah, it was a migration from Manchester across to Limburg in the south of the Netherlands. And that's where I made Rika, so it's a it's a small world.
SPEAKER_02Lovely. And just getting back to now, you you touched on the the news which we've been hearing from various sources, of course, that the Netherlands is shifting to its exam back to examination. Yes. Not every country is doing that, obviously. So I was interested to know what the kind of the drive behind it was, first of all. And then I could ask you about the logistics because it doesn't sound straightforward. But first of all, why is Netherlands moving towards something which is perhaps a lot of countries are moving away from and outsourcing, as it were, to someone like the EPO?
SPEAKER_04From what I understood, and I'm still not the expert on it because I'm working my way into it. We've now we changed the law in 1995 and went to the unexamined patent. And the idea was to offer small and medium-sized enterprises a faster route to having a patent. Because one of the big complaints about the patent system is it takes long and it's expensive. Not necessarily, and I have to defend patent offices here because of the fees from the patent offices, but uh have a go at the attorneys and the fees. And by the time you're through several official actions, the bills rack up. And
Capacity, Outsourcing Searches, And Volumes
SPEAKER_04someone in their wisdom went, you know what, we'll make it easier, we will head towards what they call the uh onchutz octroy. Great, they brought it in. And yes, it's helped. I mean, we have a steady influx of national patent applications. However, in all honesty, 50% of those are not novel, not inventive. And what then happens, of course, is that those people clutch their certificate and we do do a search. So they get a full search that says, dear applicant, your patent is neither novel nor inventive. But by the way, here you are, you have a granted patent. Trying to explain that to somebody who's not in the business is uh near enough an impossibility. And they then say, Great, I've got a patent, and the minute they try to enforce it, the other side, of course, says, you know, hey guys, I can read your search report. You can't do anything about it. And it it's a waste of time for everybody. So you also get the complaints back from the small enterprises and the entrepreneurs of why are you giving me a piece of paper that's not worth the paper it's written on.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So then with a lot of lobbying and a lot of hard work, um, finally all the right people were able to be persuaded that we should go back to having an examined patent. Also, there is a side effect of having a registration system, and other countries are seeing that too, like South Africa, like Belgium, is that you get swamped with people doing copy applications because
Dual Role: Operations And Policy
SPEAKER_04they in their own country have a subsidy system where maybe if they can show they have a granted patent that's overseas, that they can apply for subsidies from the government for whatever reason. And they then swamp the system and we get drowned. And it was, yeah, this is not what we're here for. We're here to support the growth of the Netherlands economy. We're not here to help people in other countries get their subsidies. It's not our primary purpose.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's that's which is a good point. Obviously, we we have issues like that in the UK in certain areas too, so that's something we're very familiar with.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um so the other half of that question that it was how did how do you go about reintroducing examination? It's not it's a not trivial job.
SPEAKER_04No, from a lawmaking perspective, obviously it's not too difficult. Our law in itself is very much aligned to the European patent law. There are some quirks and some differences, um, but it means in terms of writing, how should the processes look, the fact you're introducing opposition, further processing is is okay. That's to be done. So the law has been written, uh, it's gone through its internet consultation. We're now waiting for the ministries to do all the stamps that they need to do in order to make it effective. From a practical point of view, you've got two aspects. One is you need to adapt your entire ICT system because now you have to have all the process flows built into it. So that's what we've started on, um, so that we're ready in time for it going live. The second one is the examiners, and none of our current examiners have experience in doing official actions. So that training process has started. We're not expecting the law to come into first until 1st of January 28. And
Digital Transformation And Authentication
SPEAKER_04the training program for the examiner started two years ago to get them all up to speed with how do you do not just searching and writing a search report, but then really arguing with very clever attorneys who have very smart ways of coming around all the arguments that the examiners might come with.
SPEAKER_02And how long is it going to take to kind of build that workforce, do you think?
SPEAKER_04Well, we're looking to be up to strength by the end of next year in terms of the number of people that we want to bring in. And we are lucky in that we can be supported by the EPO. So searches we can outsource. Um, we don't do all the searching in-house because there's no way we could have one or two examiners per topic that is out there, in particular for the big new fields. You know, if you're looking at biotech or AI, you need specialists in-house if you're going to search that yourself. Uh, and that's where we can make use of, of course, from the European Patent Office. But we don't have that many national applications in comparison to what we have in terms of European validations. So, in the scale of things, you know, we have 3,000 national applications, but we get in between 30 to 40,000 EPNLs and UPs now. So it's a whole different ballgame.
SPEAKER_01I I I've got a few questions. They've been kind of forming in my head as we go along. Uh, I've not got a particular order, my, to go through these. So just kind of, can you deal with them as they come out of my head? Is that okay?
SPEAKER_04I will do my very best.
SPEAKER_01Sometimes, sometimes that's dangerous. So the f the first one that struck me when you were talking about moving into the the new role is, and we say this about the the IPO in the UK, is that it's a dual role. You've got the you've got the managing the shop bit, haven't you? You've you're looking after the uh patent officers of business, uh, but you've also got that policy role, the kind of advising, nudging government in the right direction and that kind of thing. So in the in the UK, it's the case that Chief Exec and other staff of the of the IPO are civil
Beekeeping, Namesakes, And Rooftop Hives
SPEAKER_01servants, they they understand the way government works and stuff like that. You came into this not being a civil servant. How'd you find that kind of the jaw nature of the role? Sorry, that was a long question, wasn't it? Apologies, sir.
SPEAKER_04At least not too many questions wrapped up into one. That's always the bit that I try to avoid, but it's really hard to do. It's been a steep learning curve, and honestly, I didn't expect it from myself. I thought, right, I'm coming in to the to the to the government structure. I'm running a team that deals mainly with IT. I understand what the lawyers are doing, I can focus on content leading, fine. Uh, on top of that, everything's in Dutch, uh, of course. So it was also a steep learning curve in terms of the language because you have to be able to read the law, the policies, the memos, uh, and cope with them and be able to challenge them or even, you know, argue with them. And then bit by bit, I got to know also, I would say, our stakeholders, and that's the Ministry of Economic Affairs. So that's my counterparts on the other side of the fence. And a lot of it's about relationship building, it's about human beings. And I I still firmly believe that if you can work with somebody, you understand where they're coming from, what are they trying to achieve, and they can learn the same from you, you can find a way through it. You can find a win-win. And that's really important in that context, is to be able to be visible.
SPEAKER_01Can I ask a really this might be a too technical a question, but let's let's go there. So you'll you'll know that the UK joined the CPTPP, the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific Partnership. I can still say it, Gwillam, but it still rolls, it still rolls off, rolls off the tongue. And when when we were going through the process of determining how we would join the CPTPP, we were quite concerned about the fact that there was a grace period provision in the CPTPP agreement, but we were able to encourage the UK government to get that set aside. And the the provisions for it being set aside is that the UK needs to be proactive in promoting a grace period, particularly within the European system. So that's that's something that the UK government has been doing there. CEPA's position is always we're we're quite kind of cool on the on the benefits or otherwise of a grace period. It's not something we speak about. But what we do say is that if a grace period is introduced, it needs to be done within the kind of broader process of pattern or harmonization. We we want to see it kind of come in with general agreement that it's the right thing to do and that it's common across particularly the EPC member states. Long introduction. Where's the Netherlands on a grace period?
SPEAKER_04Good question, and I'm not sure I can answer that one right now. And also I can I can hide nicely behind the answer of what we call belait, that's the law part. That sits very much on the other side of the fence. So they they make the decisions and the call on it. Traditionally, the patent office itself does not get involved. We are the ones who are carrying out the law, and it means that we can quite quickly use that also as a bit of a shield when it comes to those questions of going, yeah, that sits with the lawmaking. It's over there, it's over there. The fact that we have good conversations and say how would it work out in practice?
Sweet Tooth, Dutch Licorice, And Wrap
SPEAKER_04That's where we come in. So if somebody says, you know, there'll be a grace period or there'll be this, we can then at least pipe up and say, Yeah, but you know, how will the people then actually administer that? How will we know for certain that this is how we have to work with it? Classic example, just to deflect the question nicely, of course, is if you're talking, for example, around Russian sanctions, it's great what everybody dreams up of in the corridors of power, but we have to then instruct people, the formalities offices, how do you recognize? How do you recognize the pieces of paper that come in, where they come from? When do you challenge? When do you say this falls into that category?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, understood. Thank you for that. You were talking about the sort of like the digital transformation side of things. We're going through a digital transformation process in the UK. Uh, these things are always painful, aren't they? How how are you finding it? How are you finding the sort of like the leadership side of a major project like that?
SPEAKER_04Um, what helps is that I'm super enthusiastic and I can always think we can do everything in half the time and with half the money. So I step into it with both feet and I drag the team in with it. Uh so when I stepped in, one of the discussions with a former uh director of the patent office was that we wanted to do the new online filing from the EPO. They've developed a new model to take over from the current online filing system. And patent offices being what they are, fairly conservative, were like, no, no, no, we don't need to do this. And we're like, we really do need to modernize. And at the same time, our own IT providers were going, guys, the servers are falling over. You need to move, you need to come up with something better. Um, so we stepped into the project with the EPO, and then about three months later, the EPO announced they were phasing out smart cards. So we were like, whew, we are stepping into the new projects just in time because we can at the same time modernize and do two-factor authentication, uh, which is also fairer because it means that anybody from anywhere in the world can authenticate themselves.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Here we have a national login system, you have a little app, but it's only applicable for people who are Dutch or for Dutch companies.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You know, if you want to obviously have an international audience, you need to modernize. But like all good projects, we stepped into it saying, it will cost this much and it will take six months. And we went formally live with the last forms yesterday. So you can now file PCT, subsequent posts, Europeans, everything through the new portal. But it's been nearly three years in the making.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, that's that feels about right to me. Yeah, that's yeah. So Gweno, I'm I'm kind of at the end of my questions. Have you got anything else to pick up on?
SPEAKER_02Oh, I just want to ask about bees.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_02Go on. Not for the first time, as you may not know Maya. Not for the first time. We have um, I don't know what the is it a purist or something, I gather, on the podcast. Is that the right word? My understanding you were a beekeeper, or you get bees or something.
SPEAKER_04Uh I see the spies did their job just nicely. Yeah. Um, it's actually Maya is um, there's a German book called Debiene Maya, Debiene Maya, and it's about a little feisty bee who goes her own way across the world. And uh, at the end of the day, the bees kick her out of the hive because she's a pain in the neck, and then she goes off traveling, and then she overhears the wasps planning to raid the beehive, and she flies back and warns the bees, and they mount a counter-attack, and at the end of it, she's the heroine.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_04The current cartoons of the bee mayor, that it's nothing like that, but that's the original book, and it was one my grandmother gave me when I was born, and I was like, kind of, yeah, okay, yeah, I kind of have to live up to this name, I think. And so I've always had an interest in the bees, but never really done anything about it. And then during Corona times, when everything was going quiet, I thought I need to actually get this out of my system. And I signed up for a course to do beekeeping. And in the Netherlands, they only take very small groups to do it, and you it's a two-year waiting list. But I patiently sat on the waiting list and then finally got the chance to join and did the beekeeping course. Uh, I haven't got any bees because it really doesn't match with the job. Bees are bees are not just for Christmas, they're for life when you go into it. And the timekeeping is super strict. You have to go and look at them six o'clock in the evening, not at any other time of the day, because that's when they've all come back from their foraging, and that's when they need the attention, and you can check them. Things like that. So I'm still trying. The building that I'm in is a very tall building in the center of The Hague, and one of the other buildings that the government owns in Utrecht does have hives on, has its own hives on the roof. And I'm trying to get some put here because then I can go at the end of the day from the office up to the roof and do what it is that needs doing with the bees. So that's the next challenge that I have. But I don't have my own. I don't live in an area where I could safely keep bees and protect the neighbours and things like that.
SPEAKER_01Would be nice. I'm pretty sure I'm right in this, Gwillam, but and we could check it with Hugh, good fellow. I'm I'm sure cartmoes have got beehives on top of their building.
SPEAKER_02Cottmell, they have got beehives on top of their building. Um, so there's there's some company for you, but also, of course, our the Chancellor of the High Court. Yes, Lord Justice Burse has an interest here, and I recently discovered he leads a small group of international IP judges with a common interest. So you never know, you might be allowed in if you want.
SPEAKER_04That would be very interesting. No, they are they are absolutely fascinating and vital, and uh yeah, but that doesn't mean you have to have your own. You can uh you can look after the interests of them without necessarily having to do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my well, I should mention it because she will shout at me if I don't, but my wife is a new beekeeper. She's just gone through her first year of keeping bees, and it's fascinating, you know. It's such hard work. She's permanently working really hard to keep the hive healthy. Currently, she's been down there insulating it for the winter, which is quite exciting, taking on proper plumbing, plumbing insulation, grillerman, wrapping it around the hive. Oh, we've got plumbing in. Finally, it nearly did that, didn't it? And also, I'm I m I must tell my quite interesting Sir Colin Burst story about a bee. I did introduce him at a conference once, build him up as the world's leading, and he was expecting me to say judge, and I said beekeeper. And as he as as he took a swipe at me as he does to kind of playfully tell me off, a bee flew straight past him. It was almost as if it had come out of him in the scene. It was perfect. Uh Maya, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. I'm conscious that we've gone to quite a length on this one, so we probably need to bring it to uh to a close now. Grillam knows. Uh would you listen to the podcast? So you know that we do a little closer question on the end. Grillem, there is sense in where I'm going with this. Okay, so just work with me for a moment. Yeah. Do you have a sweet tooth? Yes. You do? What's your favourite sweet? Uh curly whirly. Curly whirly. Oh, that's interesting. We were talking about curly whirlies in the office the other day, and they're everyone's least favourite sweet because they're so difficult to eat. Maya, do you know what a curly whirly is?
SPEAKER_04I do know what a curly whirly is, and it's about the only thing I used to eat when I was in the UK. Uh, personally, I'm more of a cheese and a savoury person than a sweet person. But oh yes, curly whirlies were definitely something I grew up with.
SPEAKER_01So so we know it's Gillam's favourite sweat. Do you have a favourite sweat? Or are you are you going to come down on the curly whirly?
SPEAKER_04No, my favourite guilty pleasure would be dark chocolate with salt crystals in it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm I'm with I'm with you. That's where I was going. Yeah. So when when Gillem kind of turns this question back on me, I was going to dark chocolate, either with salt crystals in or crystallised ginger, are my two favourite. I love dark chocolate and ginger. Oh, classy. I just like picking up the crumbs of chocolate. It's fun. Makes a most chocolate. Do you want to know why? I asked that question, but in in my planning for this, I did I I I asked Google to give me interesting facts about the Netherlands. Okay. And number six on the list of interesting facts is the Dutch consume the most licorice in the world. How about that? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_04I can see that from uh the bowls that lie around the office that get regularly filled by various people.
SPEAKER_01And um having having been forced to eat a lot of licorice when I was growing up because it's my dad's favourite. I don't like licorice.
SPEAKER_04But here you have the salty licorice and you have the sweet licorice. So have uh an English licorice is considered extra special if you bring that in. Engelse dropp. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh there you there you there you go. I I didn't even talk about sherbet dip dabs. Oh, yeah, cool. Yeah, but you've now got a great business tip, haven't you? Every time you go to the Netherlands, you need to take licorice on it.
SPEAKER_04Take the English licorice. And from here, from here, you need to take back Straupwaffels.
SPEAKER_02I'll do that. I'm a bit nervous about going through customs of Sherbet before across that bridge.
SPEAKER_01I think I think that's probably quite a nice place to end the podcast. Maya, thank you so much for joining us. Gwill, thank you for being the amazing co-host that you are again. Uh, and if you're listening to the podcast and you want to help us build our listenership, give us a little review and tell your friends about it. Thank you.