Saturday, November 8, 2008

Ideas Day October 21st 2008: 10th anniversary of the Manchester patent clinic


Our celebration of 10 years of helping inventors and entrepreneurs in the region to make the most of their innovations went extremely well. We traced some of the original inventors who were present at the launch of the clinic and three of them came along to show off their recent inventions and successful companies.

Just one example was Chandra Parmar who now has a thriving business www.kitchenguru.co.uk online and also supplying Waitrose, Harvey Nichols and Sainsburys with his patented prepacked spices and menu for easy to cook Indian meals.

Other successful businesses assisted more recently by the advisers at the clinic came along to swell the ranks of “Meet the Inventor” . Zulf Choudhary from Spartapay with his award winning IT business, Jayne Lawton with Grobox Gardens and Liam Martin with his sonic cat collar.

Sally Long from the UKIPO presented a “Profit from Ideas” workshop in the morning. Several local businesses and inventors attended. This also provided a training opportunity for nearby PATLIBs and some of the Greater Manchester business librarians participating in our Ask About Business service.

Our lunch-time speakers were Mark Sheahan, the British Library’s Inventor in residence, speaking on the A-Z of Inventing, and the North West Development Agency on Sources of Funding for R & D.

The event was very well attended and was covered by Channel M see the link:-
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1214105369/bctid1870898385

Our patent clinic for the day was fully booked – a good sign for future successes!
Chris Brown

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