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
How Innovation Moves From Elite Sport To Your Gear At Home
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A squash ball to the ear is a painful reminder that sport isn’t just competition, it’s design, data, and decisions that protect and perform. From that opening jolt, we dive into the fast-moving world of sports technology with guests Dave Holt and Stephen Moore of Potter Clarkson, exploring how innovation is built, protected, and brought to life for pros and everyday athletes alike.
By the close, we’ve mapped a practical playbook for founders, rights holders, and teams: anchor bold claims in robust testing, choose IP instruments that match your speed and moat, and let brand and product reinforce each other when the tech reaches the public. Plus, we share the sports gadgets we wish existed, from rotation trainers to memory-wipe rackets for those embarrassing whiffs.
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Squash Mishap And Aging Bodies
SPEAKER_05Gwenham, hi, how are you? Very good, how are you? You look like you've got the sun cascading down one side of your face.
SPEAKER_04I've just got the curtain up. It's not exactly sun. There's some sun now, I'm sure. Oh, you're coughing. That's a good intro, right? At least coughing.
SPEAKER_05That's um that's certainly right for going and grabbing a quick biscuit before we start up a podcast, don't it? Little crumb came to annoy me.
SPEAKER_03So I know obviously this is all about oh, you got a sport themed mug there.
SPEAKER_05I've got a sports themed mug, you spot that. Yeah, it's got for those who can't see, it's got the word squash written on it.
SPEAKER_03Got a sports themed um Can you can can you actually read what it says? Bash. Oh yeah, I can't. I'm not reading it. Not reading it, okay. Cool.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I'm not reading it out loud. No.
SPEAKER_05As you know, I am a bit of a squash fanatic.
SPEAKER_04And this is interesting. So we've got a sports theme today, but we're going to kick off with what happened to you and sport, I guess, this weekend.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, so I'm 60 this year, and I'm probably too old to be thinking I can still play squash at the level that I was playing when I was in my twenties and thirties. But I still do kids myself.
SPEAKER_04You could have been really rubbish in your 20s and 30s. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05I was actually reasonably I was actually reasonably good. And my brain still thinks that I am, but my body is starting to kind of lag a wee bit. So the first thing that I did was turn my ankle, which I seem to be doing more and more these days when I'm playing squash. But I like to get in a little bit of kind of warm-up these days. So I'll go for a little run and a little go on a cross trainer, and I should be wearing different trainers. I should be kind of wearing my running trainers on the treadmill and then switched over to the court shoes when I play. But I get lazy, so I just chucked my court shoes on, did a bit of running, and I think I probably twisted my foot a wee bit when I was doing the running and then exacerbated that when I got on the court. And that's about the third or fourth time that's happened to me in the last year. So I really must make a note of not doing that again. But I was playing against a guy, uh, a good old friend of mine, Chris. Been playing for 20 years, maybe. He's tracking about five, six years older than me, so he's in his mid-sixties. And he's always been, he's a bit of a let man and a bit of a stroke man. I don't know if that means much to you if you're not a squash man. But it but it means that often he'll really annoy me by not playing a shot when the ball goes behind me and claiming a stroke for some in his way. Sometimes it will win his way, sometimes it won't win his way, but I'm not the kind who can argue that. Okay, I can't be bothered, so I always give him the stroke. And he'd done it about three or four times on Saturday. Absolutely fine, happy with that, Chris. But then the one time when he should have claimed a stroke, right? So the one time when he should have called a stroke, okay, he hit the ball really, really hard. Really, really hard from about five feet away, straight into my left ear. So, and I I don't know if I've um if I've perforated an eardrum or it's really painful, okay. It's really dull on this side of my head, and let's make like an ear trumpet when all of a sudden it becomes so loud. It's almost as if I've got a proper kind of amplifier that's up next to my ear. And it's still ringing at the moment. So, yeah, so I'm struggling a wee bit to concentrate.
SPEAKER_04I can imagine. Sounds like that the squash ball actually went in to that little ball.
SPEAKER_03It's so hard, it went even through your eardrump. It doesn't go in.
SPEAKER_05Okay. And I've been hit, I've been hit by hit by the squash ball obviously quite a lot over the years. And ordinarily they hit you on a nice fleshy part, like your arm or top of your shoulder, or something like that. And you get the most amazing bruise for we were, which is kind of really dark red around the outside, but bright white in the middle, I guess, where the where the impact was so hard. But imagine what this did was just force a load of ear, uh load of air into my ear at speed, and then obviously it would have compressed against it, wouldn't it? And kind of made some kind of suction cup and then bounced away. And it also knocked me off my feet. And I went spawned. I felt a bit sad because it ended up sprawling across a squash core, like a like a I don't know, like some a giraffe that's just had its legs kind of pulled out from under it. I should probably, I should probably give up. I should probably give up.
SPEAKER_03Not just photographic. How hard did he hit? Did he hit the ball so hard your neck was not long? Is that what you're trying to say? Like scratch your head.
SPEAKER_05Oh no, quite you do hit the ball quite hard when you play squash. True, especially anyway. I've seen Dave, who's one of our guests, nodding quite kind of um frequently. So do we bring the guests on and I'll think David's probably a squash player, maybe, so um, so we might we might get a snippet in the pinning on it.
SPEAKER_00Lee Davis and Willem Roberts are the two IPs in a pod, and you will listen to a podcast on intellectual property brought to you by the Chartered Institute of Pattern Attorney.
SPEAKER_05Dave, Stephen, welcome to the podcast. Dave, because you've been nodding so vigorously during that. Let's start with you, shall we?
Guest Intros And Sports Tech Focus
SPEAKER_02Thanks very much. Yeah, well, as I did a little bit of squash for paddle recently, but the turning of the ankle is kind of I'm in my past mid-30s now and I had my first big ankle twist on a standey course. I'm feeling your pain, but I've also been hit. I played with people who've never allowed a stroke. And the good thing is there's plenty of me from back to AMAP, so they definitely used to enjoy that. So yeah, I feel that I feel they've paid on that one. So I hope you hear that quickly. But yeah, no, really, really good to be on. So brief introduction. So I'm a Potter Clarkson, we're an IP specialist firm. Um we're Anglo-Nordic. Uh, for those that don't know us, we're in Nottingham, London, and we're also in Denmark and Sweden. Um, and I'm an IP solicitor who works predominantly on collaborative agreements, spin-outs, due diligence, and that type of thing. And the sports tech area is a passion project of mine. It's something I've spoken on a few times as well. So delighted to be on to chat about sport more generally, but obviously the uh the IP law partner that goes with it. So yeah.
SPEAKER_05Great, really, really looking forward to that. And Stephen, who are you set?
SPEAKER_01So I am a UK and European patent attorney at also part of clerks in a bit of a long-winded journey. I spent about 10 years in in industry working on photonics and sensors and um optics and medical devices, but that that sort of teed me up quite well to to work on some of the tech that you we see more and more in sport now around the sensor and sensors and data area. But I'm I'm very much looking forward to the sport, less so by the IP. But um, but yeah, I I I don't go into such um athletic sports myself anymore. I I think uh I've as as time's gone on, I've turned too many ankles and I just do leisurely things like golf and um I have a son who's quite a prolific squash player.
SPEAKER_05Well, up until the age about 14, 15, he was not as good as me. But then I was in my 30s then, so he's now uh he's now in his early 30s. And he once described squash to me when he was getting like reasonably good at it. He said, Daddy sort of realised it's it's just a boxing match with a racket, and that's that does seem to sum it up at times.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sounds about right. The really good people never move as well. The people who are the best at the game never get moved off the T. And that's the sort of level of sporting sophistication I look for. Don't have to run around too much, just make someone else do it for me. It's good delegation.
SPEAKER_05So, where where do we want to start, guys? Where where would you like to kick off?
Safety Tech In Rugby And Trust In Data
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, it's um I mean any any topic that that works for you guys really. I mean, uh obviously thinking about the the topic of sports tech. I mean, I've massive rugby found myself, and I think you know, one of the one of the things that comes up that's always quite interesting is you know how tech gets built into sport as a whole. I think the the the gum shield um issues that people have been facing recently. I've seen a couple of podcasts, principally South African um explayers actually talking about it, but looking into the tech behind that sort of safety equipment. And I know Stephen's worked on a couple of uh safety equipment patents as well. But I always find it interesting, you know, the adoption of that tech, how you know how it comes in, you know, all the research that's done in the background, and um and then when you get it front and centre, sometimes not quite as well received as you hoped it would be. Um, there's some great tech behind it, but you've still got people going, oh, well, you know, they didn't hit him that hard, so I'm not really sure why the gum shield went off and he had to be taken off for concussion. That all seems terribly unfair. Um I think they were comparing some of the the shots from uh Lou Diago when they had the the red card spate in the uh in the autumn's and you know it all comes back around again in terms of oh yeah, could we trust the tech? And well, we took definitely trust the tech to do what we expect it to do, but maybe not everyone understands exactly how it works. So um got to give them some credit for that. So that's that's something I've been keeping an eye on, just how that's being received. And um, I think you know, so Stephen, you've got some some heritage, so you you may have a view on whether there should be some ball tracking and uh marking whether passes are forward or not in rugby as well. We've clearly got the technology, but um perhaps there's some controversial decisions as to whether or not it was introduced this time through.
SPEAKER_01So so I uh while from Belfast is Linux, so I I um I'm usually uh you know I pretend I'm really interested in the Six Nations, but this year after Friday night and some forward passes, uh I'll uh I'll I'll be a bit more passe about rugby, I think.
SPEAKER_04Yes. As as a as a as a Welshman, can we talk about someone else? Definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's not from at all. I think I think that's interesting. I mean, this this is the thing about sports sector for me as well. I think there's um there's a really big intersection between kind of areas of IP that that some of us might work in. I mean, I'm I'm from a background where you know the the I've worked as a software company, you know, branding was key, worked with quite a few influencers, quite a lot of sports brands around collaborations, you know, how things were promoted. Um interesting, we've got one of our colleagues in the London office, Nancy is a very, very good runner. Um, and she's currently doing some product testing for Nike, which is super cool, but it's way cooler than anything else the rest of us do. You know, that that kind of product development cycle is always always really interesting. But you know, you've got the corporate side, you've got the bits going on with the Ospreys and the WIU at the moment, you've got the sort of the software side, a lot of what we see, you know, particularly over the last couple of years, has been how you build in analytics, how you build in video recording, you know, image recognition. And you know, Steven's obviously really familiar with the Centre Tech and the communications, and he and I worked together on that crossover between software implementation into you know medical devices, collaborations, how you put all of that together. And you know, data's obviously always been really important, but it's really coming to the forefront now. I don't know if I'd ever you watch the Super Bowl, but the number of adverts from sort of AI companies, you know, you had OpenAI, we're putting stuff on there, you know, Anthropic were putting things on, co-pilots who I understand we spoke about this in Valencia, because Microsoft were there when we were at the G SIT conference, and they had live AI analytics on the NFL combined, which is if you're familiar, is kind of how many times can you bench press 100 kilos, and how quickly can a man of 350 pounds sprint 40 meters? And the answer is very quickly. But you know, they're pulling all of this data together and trying to analyze what it's teaching, and then allow people to make almost instantaneous decisions. So you're getting all angles of IP being pulled together in sports technology, even if maybe its origins are from somewhere else. So, you know, how to protect that and how you work that into agreements and collaborations is always fascinating from my point of view.
SPEAKER_04It is interesting to kind of see how it's all developing. I think IP just keep growing in all different areas, and once people get the hang of it, it certainly starts hearing a new ones. But sports, I mean, is is it that recent really that we're seeing patent? Let's stick with patents for a minute, that we're seeing significant patent activity in the sports world, or do you think it's good it goes back?
Monetizing Sports Tech And Wearables
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, it's it's it's an interesting question. So I've got a client Bartfast who make um cricket simulators. So they it's like uh and if you've been to it, ever been to like a Sixers bar, but it's which is a franchise that they licensed to. So it's it's it's basically like a cricket net with a video screen and a hole at the end of it, and a bowler runs towards you on video and then a ball comes out of the hole. And um, I was prosecuting one of their applications recently, and the side of prior art was from 1937, so a UK pattern specification for testing tennis balls or or something to that um effect. So so yeah, I think technology and sports have gone as has been there all the time, and I think what we're seeing more recently is this data explosion where you know you can tag your players up with sensors and get so much data to manage. And we you see it, you know, we s when you're watching the the football and television, and uh the managers sat there with their iPads, you know, analysing the little data statistics. And to me, it's always it's almost like I used to play championship manager of the computer game as a kid, and you used to get, you know, when the match went on, it was like, oh, this person's fitness is fine to this, and they're you know, they're they're not they're presenting possession. It's almost like they've got all that data now right in front of them. And you know, I think it's there's obviously the patentable tech around the sensors and and whether that's in gun shields or American football helmets, but I think the the data element of it then, you know, you really not just need to start thinking about other flavors of IP, you know, some of it may be patentable, but there's the when I think when you get into software and algorithms, you start to think about will actually do it once to disclose this, kind of detect if other people are copying me. Um and and you know the usual things you see with sort of software, software inventions and and how best to protect.
SPEAKER_04And where's the this is a very greedy question, but where do you reckon the money is? Because obviously you don't get IP unless there's a reason to protect stuff. Um, you know, we talk about things like a hawkeye and the stuff on the you know, the big games and so on, but that's actually a very small market in the sense that you know there's only so many games on telly at any point, sort of thing. Presumably a lot of the market's actually just kind of day-to-day sports gear for for normal for normal people.
SPEAKER_02I I think so. I think that's right. I mean, I think some of the the really interesting stuff in that in that area of tech is, you know, so that carbon-plated shoes is a great example. So yeah, I mean, for the the record that that Kit Cherry ran, uh, you know, the sub two hour marathon, which was you know, an incredible bit of um you know engineering, but you know, they put the they put the trainers out to to do that, but it was never going to be a qualifying time because they've not made those trainers available to the populace at large. And I think there's a there's a dual benefit to this kind of sports tech because you know you go and see somebody do something genuinely unbelievable. You know, you go back 10 years before that diesel guard, there's no way it was breaking the two-hour mark. And that's when you get it, you get that you know big, big adoption of that technology. And then I guess I suppose the key thing is whether you're looking at the margins on that hardware or whether you're looking at more of the subscription models that come with those kind of hardware elements. So one that's always been interesting for me is that you know, so you've got Garmin and Garmin and Bostrava had a bit of a t-ta-te initial communications as I understand it, sort of October, September last year. But then you're looking at companies like Whoop who are not really monetizing the hardware, they're monetizing that you know subscription model, the analytics software, how well did you sleep? Um, as I understand it's less abusive than Garmin, which tells you you're rubbish every time you do any sort of exercise and tells you to try harder because they've you know they've rated you against elite athletes. But I think there's different ways of monetizing, but I I think you know, if you get that big consumer adoption, and quite often you do that through the elite levels of sport, a bit like in F1, where they scale everything down into the you know the consumer vehicles eventually, actually, you get that flowed down effect of tech from the very top. But if you can get the consumers on board going, yeah, this really adds some value to you, you know, as an athlete. I mean, you know, Lou probably has been through the same stuff I went over. I played tennis when I was younger, you know, that kind of carbon-infused tech in the tennis rackets, you know, the the thing to get was the slightly lighter tennis racket or the slightly lighter bike that's got the carbon weave in it, you know, it's getting that kind of adoption to the mass market. And then I think that's where the sort of the real money comes comes through from that point of view, at least from the that side thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was I was just gonna agree with what they've said, you know, as a golfer, you're sort of like, well, what technology can I can I add to my game to to try and beat my friends? Or and I guess I guess in your case layers, you know, what what piece of technology could I stop getting my ears smacked at on the squash court? Yeah, I I think you know, I in golf the the the R call centers that can give you so much data on your on your round and really work, identify the games that are the the part of your game to work on. And uh it so I think it's that you see it on TV, professionals using it, and you think, oh, can I use that? Um so I think it is a whole brand and image and product design side of IP that will that will really support you know certain products, even things like you know compression wear, you know, the athletes wear to get that extra edge from their their body's performance, you know. You see the kids on the football pitches then, you know, wearing the same things because they you know they want to they want the extra edge too.
Patents In Sport: History And Trends
SPEAKER_05I was gonna if I can ask uh or just uh these aren't questions, these are kind of observations more than anything else, but in the sort of like topical bringing sports to the masses. So first one, darts. I guess we could have a philosophical argument about whether darts is a sport or a game or a pastime, whatever you might want to call it. But I think since the since the invention of the blade, I think it might have been Winmore that did the first bladed dart board. I might be wrong. So you effectively take the wire and the staples out of the board and you have a much thinner blade in it. I think that increased the scoring sizes, trebles and doubles and the bullets, et cetera, by sort of like 25-ish percent, I want to say. So averages starting to shoot up from the early 2000s onwards. And I'm fairly sure, I mean, darts has always been a kind of mass spectator sport in terms of uh on the TV and the like, but I'm fairly sure that the the sudden averages in the kind of hundreds all the time and that there must have been there must have been a correlation between the improvements in the board tech and the improvements in in viewing figures. And so just this week or so over the weekend, I saw that the MCC, I'm gonna need to look at this one because it's so new. I saw that the MCC is going to relax the laws of cricket so that a cricket bat no longer needs to be made out of a single piece of willow. So it's all it's single blade of willow, obviously, with a cane handle instead. And um and apparently English willow is now so expensive that it's pricing sort of less well off people out of being able to play cricket as cricket as juniors. And I kind of I recognize that because when when my eldest tried to get into the cricket scene when he was like 14, 15, we would we would turn up for like Hampshire Charles and stuff like that, and he would be there with these single cricket bat and dirty white, and you'd get other people turning up with their bags full of multiple bats that they were picking the kind of right blade from and and so on. So um, so the MCC are going to allow laminated bats. So I went on a little bit of a cricket bat patent search thing. And bizarrely, most of the patterns for cricket bats that aren't like standard English willow bats are in the US. And there are some extraordinary cricket bats under patent in the US, sort of hollow wood with cork infill. There was one where the handle lives offset from the blade, so the blade is in advance of the handle. I I just I didn't realise that there were so many patterns on cricket bats. Most of those bats aren't legal to play to play with.
SPEAKER_02Sounds a lot like the US. I think there's a there's a really interesting thing with the US that they know they take they take hobbies very seriously, um, you know, hobbies, sports, and you know, engagements. I think it's um you see a lot of innovation around it. I also think if you know you get into markets, you know, let's be honest, you know, in England, in India, it's gonna be a very traditional approach. We're gonna stick to the rules, we're gonna do business properly. But if you're playing a you know a decent standard, almost certainly, but sort of college cricket or something in the US, maybe they're not following the same, uh, the same laws that apply. And I think that that creates a really interesting framework for it. But as you say, I I think you know, number one, access is really important. I think you know, from from my personal perspective, I have a feeling that sports in general should be something that people can access and play. And you know, the the classic sport is kind of get a ball and play whether it's rugby, whether it's football, whether it's cricket, you know, something you can play in the street or on some grass, or that's where the roots are for sport for me, rather than like motorsport or similar. But the access is important. And the other thing is I think that the way the game is managed directs innovation. I mean, we so our firm, not Steve and I personally, because of course we're far too young for that, but our firm was involved in um some of the development of the shark suit technology that was then used in the I think it was the 08 Olympics, where effectively all of the records were broken and we're now only just getting back to that stage. And you know, the downside to the Olympics was everyone went, yeah, okay, that's too good. It's too much of an enhancement to the athletes, we're gonna have to go back. But I think it also really helped the brand because you know they were sort of first on with this innovation, they were they were getting through that. And you know, we might have a similar situation with the cricket bat situation here because you know, the first ones pick up that really nice bounce of what can I do within the laws now? You know, you're first on. Feel like when the Adidas Predators first hit the market, and then now I've just really admitted how old I am. But you know, with that sort of extra grip and the control, and you know, when you're the first one on for that, again, go back to our point, I think that's where you really break the market. And you know, you'll probably get a glut of of new filings. As soon as these get the wind that these laws are gonna start to change, it might lead to a you know, a flurry of patenting or protection activity, um, one way or another. So it'd be really interesting from an innovation capture point of view, I think, as well.
SPEAKER_04I was gonna chuck in um okay, here's a good method, a curveball, isn't it? Sports broadcast. I was just reflecting, Lee and everyone. I'm the worst person to be on the podcast about sport, because I don't really get it. I like exercise, but I actually I prefer things that make it things more difficult, not easier. So I started to work every day, and that's kind of a large chunk of my kind of exercise. And the idea of getting a better bike makes no sense to me because I'm gonna go faster and it's gonna be easier and it won't get fitter. I actually need a worse bike, ideally, one with square wheels, maybe, uh, and no oil. I don't know. But I guess there's even innovation. There's there's innovation in there, because uh my cousin is very supportive, he had a parachute for sprint training.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the additional resistance, the ones, the ones that got um so I I trained, I trained quite well. I used to play a decent amount of rugby, I sort of got out of that because I got kicked in the head a few too many times. Maybe rugby related, maybe not, maybe it's just personal. But um, you know, I got out of that before before I was on the professional side. But the the ones that really get me are the oxygen restriction masks, for example. So, like you're saying, it's like, oh, I'm gonna exercise, but I'm gonna make an easier piece of work harder. And I'm gonna use that to sort of replicate, you know, altitude conditions or or or that type of thing. People do try and slide an easement to acclimatise, which doesn't quite work, but Based on the science, but it it's interesting you've got that as well. And a friend of mine, interestingly in London, runs a gym where genuinely they use a similar piece of technology to a TENS machine to effectively electro-stimulate your muscles while you're working out, which causes an increase in obviously muscular tension, muscular work, you know, causes some of that you know, there's muscular tears for muscle building and strength. The idea is you're accelerating an hour-long workout into 15 minutes of effectively electro-imediated pain. I personally can't think of anything worse than being tased while I'm working out, but it's absolutely that attitude. It's like, right, what can I do in 15 minutes that I could have previously done an hour? And you know, how do I get to that end point? So there's, yeah, as you said, there's definitely market in that as well. It's it's fascinating.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I think the threat of being tased if you don't work out, that's gonna work.
SPEAKER_02That does.
SPEAKER_04That's very slightly different approach.
Access, Rules, And Innovation Pathways
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that feels that feels like an old school rugby coaching, you know, not just getting out in the rain and running in the mud. It's kind of, you know, we do we do have all sorts of solutions if you don't want to run. It's uh yeah, it's very true. It's very true.
SPEAKER_01Your point about feeling slightly out of pace chimes a bit. I I uh when I first went to see the client I mentioned, Batfast with the cricket simulators, uh my colleague and I went for a visit and they were like, Oh, do you want to do you want to go? Um, you know, do you want to have a just want to have a try of either you know, do you either you play cricket? And my colleague didn't at all. So I said, well, I used to play a little bit at school, but northern high school cricket standards is not the highest. So yeah, went in, he's oh well I'll keep the speed quite low at sort of 30, 40 miles an hour. First ball, like second ball, third. I don't know what you could what do you call it when you get three in a row? Is that a trip and something?
SPEAKER_04But right?
SPEAKER_01So I think my uh I think I've managed to get the bat on on the fourth one.
SPEAKER_05And then it says I was a bowler. I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued by this, Stephen. Was it um was it different styles of bowling, or was it kind of just fast, medium pace, or could there could was there a bit of spin in there?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the latest tech, you can you I mean it's it's ultimately a bowling machine sat behind the screen. So and you can, you know, they've got a nice interface app that that allows you to choose, you know, how you how you want the ball, where you want it. So it can be a purely entertainment thing when it went to sixes for like a celebration, they you know you could emulate like classic balls, like there was a Joffra Archer, you know, lightning speed one that was that they'd done in some famous match that uh yeah. And I got my back to that one. So I guess it was too slow. You risked, but you got your back to it.
SPEAKER_04That's the point. So that's the point in which you remind the client that you're there to do their patents, not to play cricket. I got some other skills, we're all good.
SPEAKER_05One of the other things I found quite interesting was uh not that I go to pubs regularly most weekends, but the pub pub one of the pubs local to me has just introduced um kind of camera-aided dart scoring. So you don't have to do your own adding up and taking away anymore. It's just a couple of cameras trained on the board and the scoreboard connected to it and it does it all for you and kind of tell you what tells you what you need to get next. That's that makes darts more accessible, doesn't it? Because I I mean I grew up like I grew up playing darts. So you learn by rote the scoring system. It doesn't mean you're good at math or anything like that. It just means you can kind of you can add three numbers together and you know kind of where it takes you next. And and by and large, you it's just memory rather than actually physically working it out. But I always remember when I used to sort of first start to play it with my dad and stuff like that, it was like not really understanding, you know, always struggling to kind of get to the next number and kind of thinking more about it rather than just playing the game. Whereas people now can rock up and just play darts. It's you know, they're the the think the thinking bit of numbers is taken out before them, which is probably a good thing because I think numbers are a distraction in darts, oddly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, definitely from the drinking. The numbers do get away, the drinking are fine with them, that sort of thing. It's it's um have you been this is not obviously not specific indoors, but I think there are others available, but um, have you been to flight club before in locations around London? It's that sort of thing, it's like people are gonna fall out over whether you know three times eighteen is a particular number or another number. So, you know, take that out of the equation and and give them a give them a game. I I only ever played round the clock, so luckily I can just about count from one to twenty. So I'd you know got over that hurdle as a lawyer. Well, I'm not an accountant, but um, yeah, I agree with you. I think you know, some of those and and the tech's obviously been there a while, but it's kind of how you deploy it in new ways to you know to make the game more enjoyable and and bring people in as well, which is a which is a big part of it.
SPEAKER_04I was gonna just talk about dance just quickly. So I was recently involved in um actually it was a flight club, flight club of promoting something, and I went along and it was a world rec they're trying to beat the world record for hitting a bullseye, as in terms of distance.
SPEAKER_03Windows, yes, I've heard this story. This is a great story.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And uh anyone anyone anyone can get I got I think I'm gonna get the number right. Anyone can guess roughly the distance currently without cheating for the world record for hitting a bullseye in terms of distance from the from the hockey, uh from the board? I think about 30 meters.
SPEAKER_05I think it was eight meters. I think so, wasn't because you did it indoors. I think I was gonna say 15 feet, Gillum.
SPEAKER_04You know, money. That's that's that's 24 feet, isn't it? So yeah, 30 meters is wow, that'd be cool. But no, you went, and actually my colleague hit the outer ring on the second throw, and he got I think he got the second closest from anybody in the whole thing. Completely sorry.
SPEAKER_05Um again, not just made off of IP, haven't we? Which is the purpose of the podcast, I'm conscious.
SPEAKER_04Yes, I was can I come back to that actually Lee? Because I should I was actually thinking about this. We've talked about innovation a lot, um, and we all know you know this is an IP podcast, and it's all about thank you, Lee, for bringing us back though. Uh it was an interesting chat though. Obviously, the the IP bit is as as you kind of touched on both of you, then you could need to get some reward by making sure that you don't get um people just ripping you off in very broad terms. But if Stephen, I can ask you as a kind of you say you know you've been patenting and stuff and everything. Do you find the patent offices tend to have a kind of dedicated sports specialist group, or do you get sent all over the place?
SPEAKER_01It's difficult to know. I mean, yeah, certain because I've I've I've sort of done cricket, I've done American football helmets and some exercise bike stuff, so they've not had the same examiners, but I I've not to be honest, I never looked that closely at sort of whether specific departments, and and then some of it's been UK based and some of it's been EPO. So yeah, I'm not sure.
Making Sport Harder: Training Tech
SPEAKER_04No, it's not a science. That suggests a no to me, because I think you're not getting right. We've got the spot specialists coming in on the which is kind of which is kind of an interesting point, really, because going back to the fundamentals, this stuff is all yeah, it is all good science, isn't it? So you're gonna get sent to the relevant science areas. And again, Stephen, you mentioned about photonics. I mean, it sounds like you've got some fairly high-end sensor-related stuff going on there as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, that's just my own personal background. Uh I'm not sure how much photonic sensor.
SPEAKER_04I think actually uh one of the ones I I did do for Balfast had some optical sensors in there for um yeah, just controlling where the ball sits in there and it's also um um as with many of these things, it starts at the elite level and then kind of filtered down as you're saying, Dave, I think. Um but then presumably it also moves across to parallel areas of technology as well. So you don't say stay in sport.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, and I think uh I think the other way as well, I think you know there's potentially a lot of stuff coming from med tech and wearables in into sport, particularly for the you know, the sensors and tracking type applications, plus you don't have the any regulatory barriers to you know sticking some sensors on your on your rugby team.
SPEAKER_02They'll normally do worse things than that as well, to be fair. So you know, give them their credit, they're a good they're a good testing environment. I think I think that's I think that's right, Golemash. Yeah, it's it's something we look at quite a lot. You know, it's where it's coming from and where it pivots to. I think there are some really interesting kind of research units, you know, so you know Loughborough University, for example, is is world-renowned for its you know, sports technology, and and you know, they've got some of the highest quality measuring equipment in the world for sports performance, and they continue to develop there. But it's you know, it's whether you go down, and you know, we were talking about monetization a bit earlier, it's you know, do you go down into sort of a general medical device application or something that might fall into physiotherapy or might fall into sort of general treatment and then kind of pull it back over to sports applications because you know, for example, the athletes in football in particular are incredibly valuable, their sort of health and well-being is a is a massive priority because they're a huge asset for the club while they're playing. So, you know, you've got maybe say physiotherapy tape, does it reduce instances of hamstring strains or groin strains or you know, cramp even as signals about the compression wear? So is it right? This is intended to alleviate this condition and we work it into sport, or do you identify an issue in sport and then sort of work it back through the medical expertise, the scientific expertise of those people who you want to collaborate with? And that that's where some of the really interesting public-private uh crossover happens, particularly the specialist units as as well that you get that are you know either at NHS hospitals that have particular conditions they look at, or um you know, physiotherapy units that that have specialisms. I know there's a few that they're looking to develop around the Midlands which are really interesting to support that kind of sport tech and you know general sporting heritage. So that there's a lot that will come and sit across a number of areas, but as you say, the science has to be robust, it has to be well tested, you still expect it to meet the the standards of rigor that go with the patenting process. You know, you need to make sure you're you're backing up those claims you know as as best you can. As I say, some some don't, some uh don't go down the patenting route, some are sort of branding led and some of the face masks, for example, weren't uh weren't off the back of any particular robust studies, but it was yeah, marketing first and uh and sort of science later. But particularly on Stevie's side, it it you know it needs to meet those standards.
SPEAKER_05Did you know that at the last Winter Olympics, so what's that, 2022, isn't it? Because the Winter Olympics obviously just started very recently. Uh so I I just asked I asked um Google the question, how many patents are there in the Winter Olympics? And it couldn't answer me that. Um, but it could tell me how many granted patents there were relating to skiing technology in the 2022 Winter Olympics, and there are a hundred over a hundred and ten thousand national and international granted patents relating to skiing technology the 2022 Winter Olympics, which is just extraordinary, isn't it, when you consider it's it's people jumping on two sticks of wood and skiing down a slope. That's that's quite a lot of protected IP in there.
SPEAKER_04Um and it's a massive market, isn't it? I mean, I think it's a nice high, you don't really buy cheap skis because it's two days, it's kind of dangerous.
SPEAKER_05I've never I've never been skiing, it's an unknown world to me.
Darts, Scoring Tech, And Accessibility
SPEAKER_04I think it goes without saying I hate skiing, but anyway. Because everyone's gonna see, I mean everyone just does their knees, but hence the safety side of it, of course. But um, yeah, I mean, well, turn it over to the guys here. I mean, I can imagine that area having it's a it's a pretty rich area for for patenting and probably quite lucrative.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think so. And I think it's it's got a big, big consumer market as well, and I think that kind of almost drives um maybe more micro innovations. So maybe we're not necessarily looking at a wholesale change, but we're looking at something that you know, that marginal improvement, you know, something you can sell to the new season of skiers coming in, your edges are slightly better, your skis are slightly lighter. I mean, we work with a a company that puts graphene into composites. So you have sort of like graphene polymer composites and it increases the tensile strength while reducing the weight, which you know airlines are gonna love because it keeps you under the uh the weight limit. Um, but yeah, I mean and the injury prevention obviously is a is a big thing as well. But you know, you have thousands of people flocking out to the slopes a year, and it's it's not a cheap thing to do. So, you know, people normally have the um sort of the hobby money to go alongside that. A bit like golf, Stephen. I guess this would be uh the new clubs are slightly lighter and they feel slightly better in your hands. It's probably similar for uh your skis and your ski boots. The heating elements were the big ones when I sort of I saw those coming in, you know, the heated in alignment was for the boots, which uh yeah, it's a pretty luxurious feeling. It's like heated seats in the car, but ski boots are instruments of torture anyway, so I can't really recommend them. I much prefer the snowboarding boots device.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, the other one, the other one that uh sim uh an apparently simple sport that attracts huge numbers of patterns is golf, isn't it? And that's really interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I mean it people come obsessed with it. You know, i uh it's the marginal gains, anything just to get your handicap that 0.5 lower, people will spend an absolute fortune or to somehow compensate for you know that your awful Sunday afternoon golf swing that you spent half the day in the bushes, you're like, right, I need to I need to fix this. So and I think that's something we're you know, a repeating thing that's coming up today is that as much as you see all this elite sport on TV, it's actually the consumer market is probably where the the biggest commerce is, and um whether it's replicating what the the professionals are doing on television or whether it's just you know taking some of the the difficulties out of the game, you know, in golf there's a lot of technology around making things more forgiving that a professional would never touch, but it just you know allows you to keep your ball and play a bit more than coming back to squash, the market's a lot more um diverse now, but I remember so this would be what would I have been?
SPEAKER_05I started playing squash at 14, so I may have been in my late 20s. So 30 years ago, let's say 30 years ago. Yeah, I've done the maths quickly. Uh if it was darts, I'd have known that immediately. So about 30 years ago, I think it was Prince introduced what they called the power ring, which was kind of like an inverted ring on the top top of the racket handle, so that all of the long strings were the same length. Um, and I've I've played with this Prince racket ever since. I've never did never deviated from a prints racket because the moment I saw it, it was like, so you saw it in the pro game, it was like, oh, I've got to have one of those. So exactly that point, Stephen. It was here's this innovation in the pro game. I don't know whether it's any good for me or not. I'm sure it's not improved my game one I owner, but one, looked really cool. Yeah. And and two, it it becomes synonymous with the game. You know, if anyone looks at the kind of the tier top shape of the squash racket, now it's the prints one that probably comes to mind because of the because of the design as much as the as the technology was in there. Quick question though, and so I did bounce the spell off of Gulem to make sure that I wasn't asking a really daft question. He's told me it's not a daft question, probably means it is. So I was thinking we've we've talked about lots of kind of innovation, and I'm really I am quite interested in the getting it from like the elite sport into the kind of like the public face of the sport. But actually the elite side of it is really important, isn't it? And it moves at such a pace, records are broken daily, weekly, elite athletes are looking for increased performance all the time. Is the patent system sufficiently agile enough to cope with that sort of pace of change? Can can yeah, can can can IP really be a driver in that? Or are it or does it kind of hinder it in any way?
SPEAKER_01I think it depends. I mean, if you look at somewhere like F1, which is traditionally, to my knowledge, although I've not done a deep dive into it, sort of like not made use of the patent system, you know, a lot of it's based on trade secret knowledge to the extent they can keep something secret. And then and and and the innovation is so fast-paced that by the time you get your patent granted, it's it's obsolete. So I think there is definitely elements of that. And I think in the in the data processing side of tech in the modern in modern sports world, that you know, by the time, you know, even if you wanted to patent your algorithms for you know working out where players should go on the pitch, you wouldn't, you know, by the time you've done that again, that could be obsolete, or someone's developed a better AI model that can do it, you know, 10 times better or faster. Yeah, so I think I think it's a balance. I I think you but then you take something more traditional like sports equipment and like the squash racket example or the latest tech in you know a golf club, then I think you know, then sometimes there's step changes that will last 20 plus years, so so pattern protection absolutely is. Uh I guess it's it's whether it's is it incremental or is it fundamental? And that's probably you know good.
SPEAKER_05On the power ring thing, I was quite interested to see, and it was probably maybe 10 years ago, so but about the right timescale, really, if they did if they did introduce it 30 years ago. I was interested to see that other manufacturers started to bring a power ring variant in, and I presumably that's because uh end of patent. Yeah, yeah, I'd agree.
IP Mechanics: Offices, Sensors, And Medtech Crossover
SPEAKER_02And I think it's I think it's a use case as well. I mean, I think you know it's gonna vary from sport to sport. I I would be I'd be willing to think that people like, you know, for example, Porsche in in high-level motorsport, you know, not necessarily Formula One, but you know, if they've got something coming through them, they think actually, you know what, this can potentially go into consumer engines, we'll put this into our road cars. I mean, you know, Porsche, Porsche is not exactly an affordable biggest level car, but you know, your Audi's in Formula One these days. You know, some of the some of the engine tech that maybe Renault are putting together, there probably will be things where they go, you know what, this isn't just really useful for an engine, it'll do 120 miles before exploding because we've ragged it too hard, you know, for maximum power output. But if there's those little things that kind of play into that market later, I think they'll they'll heavily rely on that. But I flip I think the flip side is the nice agile piece of the um of the IP puzzle with this, is as Stephen pointed out, is is your designs potentially. You know, if there's a really nice aesthetic, but you don't really want to worry too much about the the polymer composition of it, for example, your power ring racket, you go down the registered design route, you've got sort of lower examination requirements, you're much quicker to get on the register. You've got the Hague system, for example, but then branding is obviously massive. And I think you know, if you're if you're kind of a Nike or you're a hoker or something like that, you're not going to be the only one who's putting carbon plates in shoes. And to be honest, it might not be where you want to put your eggs. But if you get the right athlete, you spend your branding budget, you know, in a smart way on the name and you start to get that association of athlete brand, you know, end product. I think that part of the system is is really flexible as well. So, you know, it's it's it it's a bit of a trite term, but that kind of mosaicing game of what's the right thing at the right time to get me the outcome that I want. Even if everyone else is a fast follower, if if everyone knows that someone ran a record time on my shoes under my brand, sure they could put a carbon plate in. But I've got I've got this for the next few years, so let's let's build the uh the IP protection that way. So I think it's you know it's flexibility about how you protect it is great as well.
SPEAKER_05I was wondering how we were going to kind of drive the podcast towards a conclusion because quite honestly, I could keep talking forever. I think you've just done it, Dave. I mean, that was that's kind of perfect, isn't it? I mean, that's in the in the last kind of few sentences there. I think you've summed up exactly the role that IP has to play in sport, and it is as an enabler, and it is about choosing the right kind of IP protection for where you want to go, brand, technology, whatever, whatever it might be. So cheers for that. I've also got an eye on the time, and I'm conscious that we're getting close to being one of those that runs to towards an hour. So we didn't we did this draw it to a conclusion. So I have I have another job on the podcast, which is to try and think up of some tangential closer. But I just have to admit to Gillam that I've been so engrossed in the conversation and kind of thinking where I might go next with it, I've entirely forgot to come up with a question to close the show. What are we gonna do?
SPEAKER_04Well, luckily Lee, um yeah, no, um I've got one. Um we start with the one. You need to explain how this works first. Yep, sorry. We start with Lee and I ask him a question, and then they ask you guys the same question. It's not that it's not that complicated, Lee. Really?
SPEAKER_05It all played off with a little bit of a kind of surprise into the podcast, and it's now become so customer practice we should bin it.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Oh, and then to be clear, then Lee answers the question. Sorry, I should mention that. Um if you were on the whole set of instructions. Lee, please give me an answer to the following question. If there was one piece of sports technology that they could create that you would love to have, what would it be? Oh well.
SPEAKER_05So I I have a problem with hip-shoulder alignment when it comes to squash. Okay. Uh, I never quite get enough pivot. And I'm conscious that that's where my games always failed for me over the years. So I would like something where I could just practice forehand and backhand that's only about my body and not about actually where the ball is, if that if that makes sense. So I don't know, but it would need to be some kind of restraining device that I wore, perhaps, that kept hips and kind of shoulders in the same plane. Uh yeah, I've always I've always thought that anything that helps me get rotation would be really, really useful because I'm not very good at it. I tend to keep my hips still, swing the top part of my body, and then forever kind of open hit my must be like a straitjacket, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or in my head, it was some kind of like broom device that went across your shoulders and then was kind of tethered down to your hips. But I'll maybe give too much disclosure away now because maybe I'm on the way to it to it to an invention.
SPEAKER_04Well, we're not broadcasting yet, so we can get this file and guide you on it. Um Stephen, over to you.
SPEAKER_01Well well, yeah, I was I was too late to the party. So 12 months ago or so, I thought what we need, what I need is when I go to the driving range, they've got those awful T's that are basically an upturned hoax pipe. Um, and it's never the right height for or it might be the right height for one club, but it's not the right height for another club. I thought, I need something that you could, you know, either change the T easily or bring your own thing that you could adjust the T height. Um my friend and I were like had come up with the concept and be like, oh yeah, I'll I'll write the patent fine. Like, and um turns out something done that already. The guy and my friend bought one last week.
SPEAKER_04So as as you know, you've got you take a client of that moment that was you you you're really clever because it's clearly a really good idea. You just weren't first. So there you go. You know you've been there. Dave, Dave.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think I'm gonna go for something that probably will preserve my uh my embarrassment. Obviously, starting with the story of a squash ball of the ears. So I don't know if any of you have played paddle, but there's a load of stuff going around on Instagram. You know, what happens when you miss a smash and you get ridiculed for it for ages? So I'd love if a racket, it's every time you miss a big smash, you get like a men in black style flash, and the last five seconds is just eliminated from somebody's memory, so nobody remembers it's gone through a big smash. Swing and a miss. And you know, you can just go back to sort of starting the next point and go, Oh, yeah, it was a it was a real real shame, but you know, yeah, couldn't couldn't quite get there, no problems at all. And just start start again from fresh, save, save all the blushes of the ideal. I wonder it's an exhausting place to be. Um but yeah, it's fun though.
SPEAKER_05Uh so Grillam, this question's probably wasted. You've you've told us that your sporting kind of prowess is next to zero. So the question is possibly wasted on you, but you know you have to get it by return. So what yours?
SPEAKER_04Oh, it's really simple. And if I may, absolute genius. Um it's really simple. It's something that makes me taller, stronger, faster, and with better reaction time.
SPEAKER_05What? Perjury.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, infinite self-belief.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Oh guys, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's really been a pleasure. And I uh Gwenam and I often say the ones that you enjoy the most, not that we should enjoy some more than others, are the ones where it just feels like a conversation and you hit time and it's like, where did that go? And this has been one of those. So thank thank you both for coming on and uh having a conversation with us. It's been brilliant. Gwillam, thank you for coming on as ever, and I'll see you on the next one. And if you have listened to this in the build up to World IP Day, which is have a big focus around sports and sports tech, then drop us a little mention somewhere on the podcasting platform that you're using and other people who find the show.
SPEAKER_06Cheers, you can take a look at the body.