In this proposal we aim to work with our partner the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to gather evidence on the extent of recourse to patent protection in the UK economy, the use of patents by firms and on the strategies being used by firms to manage their IP and circumvent the problems caused by overlapping patent rights or 'patent thickets'. We bring new academic thinking on these issues (in the US and UK) to bear on a small scale survey where the user community is involved in generating and gathering the data needed by them. By doing this we will be able to plug important evidentiary gaps about the recourse to patenting for innovative firms and also the use of patents though licensing and cross-licensing in the UK-wide economy. In addition a detailed survey of UK IP management practices based on similar surveys conducted in the US will enable a deeper understanding of the patent thicket question as well the measures UK firms are taking to gain 'freedom to operate'. We expect that this understanding of IP management practices will be a valuable input in IPOs training programs to raise awareness in small and medium firms and can also inform IP policy in the UK.

Suppose that you are a British firm deciding whether, and how, to patent a new technology across Europe. Similar firms, operating in sectors reliant on intellectual property rights, add 4.7 trillion Euros to the European economy annually (http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-889_en.htm). Research has also shown that obtaining a patent is associated with significant growth and productivity improvements on average (Balasubramanian and Sivadasan, 2011). Currently, you have only one option when it comes to patenting across Europe -- the misleadingly named European Patent. This is based on a single patent application, but only takes effect through a `bundle' of national patents in different European countries. This means that you have to pay additional translation and validation fees in each country in which you need protection. Also, you can only defend your patent, or challenge other companies' patents, country by country. Soon, you will have a new option: a European Union unitary patent (UP), overseen by a Unified Patent Court (UPC), parts of which will be located in London. Agreement on this unitary patent was only reached after late-night discussions between European Union heads of government, including David Cameron. The agreement has support from the UK's government because the potential economic benefits are large. The European Commission has estimated the cost savings alone at 193 million Euros per year; the knock-on effects due to higher rates of innovation and growth thanks to simpler patenting are potentially larger still. These potential benefits are uncertain, not least because many decisions about the new patent system must still be taken. Decisions about patent fees, the rules followed by the UPC, and the quality of the judges deciding patent cases, will affect the attractiveness of the UP and UPC. The new patent system is also being grafted on to an existing European patent system, which may mean the system ends up being more, not less complicated. Current holders of European Patents will have to choose whether to enforce their patents in national courts, or in the UPC. Our project therefore looks at the likely benefits of the UP and the UPC -- no easy task, given the complexity of the proposed system, the pre-existing European Patent system, and the patent systems in different European Union member states, and the possible changes in behaviour that result from a new institution. The project brings together researchers from the University of East Anglia with economists and managers at the Intellectual Property Office and specialists at the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law (MPI IC) and the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) to work on research into the existing European patent system. We will work on three main areas: the Unitary Patent itself (demand for the patent compared to other alternatives, and opportunities for gaming the system); the Unified Patent Court (the quality of judges on the court, the incentives to litigate, and the volume of litigation); and the ties between small and medium enterprises and national patent offices (in particular, the routes to greater cost-effectiveness for SMEs interested in patenting). The questions we ask are informed by our conversations with practitioners at a number of recent events, including a large workshop at the European Patent Office in Munich. Those conversations revealed that substantive knowledge gaps remain about how patenting costs and inefficiencies in existing patent litigation systems affect patent applicants. Many workshop participants expressed fear that large patent active firms would misuse the new patent system to obtain advantages over their rivals. Our project will show whether these fears are well-founded or not, and also establishes an invaluable baseline of patenting activity and patent litigation at the beginning of this new intellectual property regime.

This project will investigate if crowdsourcing can be used to aggregate the content of disparate, open-data sources across the internet to determine which patents underpin commercial products, and organise and present these according to technical criteria in a visual "gallery" form appropriate for engineering design. Patents are frequently used to quantify levels of innovation associated with specific regions or companies. However despite the development of sophisticated data mining tools to support the analysis of over 50 million online patent records, little is known about which patents are actually "commercialized" and how they are embodied in commercial products. Because of this "patent informatics" has been inherently limited to the study of the records, rather than the use, of Intellectual Property (IP). This information gap inevitably reduces the accuracy of academic and commercial analysis that use patent data for applications such as innovation research, R&D fore-sighting, and IP portfolio valuations. Furthermore, the presentation of existing data maps is not in a form that is useful for engineering designers when conceptualising and embodying products: it is predominantly text-based (and often deliberately obfuscated) when more visual presentation with exemplars and appropriate technical taxonomic terms would greatly enhance utility when undertaking engineering design development. Crowdsourcing utilises large networks of open people to compete discrete tasks. Virtual tools are used to co-ordinate the distribution, payment and co-ordination of results, resulting in a labour market that is open 24/7 and a diverse workforce available to perform tasks quickly and cheaply. The distributed network of human workers provide on-line, "black-box", reasoning capabilities that could far exceed the capabilities of current AI technologies (i.e. genetic algorithms, neural-nets, case-based reasoning) in terms of flexibility and scope. This project proposes that crowdsourcing can be utilised to access open data sources such as user manuals, product labelling, court proceedings and company web pages to understand which patents are actively used in current products and how they have been embodied. With a more accurate representation of innovation commercialisation, technical metadata (labelling), and utilisation, we envisage patent searches not as a stage-gate check but as a revitalised source of design inspiration. Indeed, if crowdsourcing proves a cheap, scalable way of collating this information and applying appropriate taxonomic and visual engineering information, it could fundamentally alter the early phases of engineering design. To this end, the project will result in a visualization tool that can be used to both guide and inspire design conceptualisation and embodiment.

Each year, criminals steal an estimated £280 Billion of secret information. These crimes are hidden, with the perpetrators potentially thousands of miles away. Where does this crime happen? In the cyber world. Cyber criminals target valuable company assets, as they hack computers and bypass security systems to steal confidential business information, prototype designs, strategic bid information and customer lists. These assets are collectively known as trade secrets, as they derive their value from their secrecy. When this theft is done to benefit foreign countries, it is known as economic espionage. Concerned governments and companies are effecting important changes to combat this problem. Yet, despite the huge economic impact of these thefts, very little is known about them. This research seeks to address this lack of knowledge by investigating data on the theft of trade secrets to understand their economic impact. Using a unique source of data, this research examines what is actually happening in cybercrime. Analysis of information from court cases generates a systematic understanding of what is stolen, who the criminals are, and how this affects victims and the economy as a whole. By definition, the stolen trade secrets are secret, and therefore very difficult to investigate. This project uses the rare insights and information found in court cases to tease out a better understanding of this cybercrime. Over the course of this project, a team of researchers will collect and analyse court data. The researchers will use statistical and other analytical techniques to create a robust understanding of trade secret theft and its implications. These findings will be publicised using conferences, seminars, academic papers and social media, so that groups and individuals interested in these topics can engage with this project and the research team. This research will benefit businesses, policy makers, researchers and the general public. Businesses will have a better understanding of the value of their trade secrets and how best to protect them. Policy makers will be able to develop better policy as the project will generate evidence to ground economic insights and objective analysis into action. These improved policies, which create mechanisms to protect assets, will benefit the economy as a whole, as law and policy will be better tailored to the actual, as opposed to our current theoretical, situation. Researchers and innovators, from the fashion designer working on their next collection, to the aerospace engineer developing a new aeroplane, will be able to better protect their valuable prototypes, software programs and other trade secrets. Researchers who focus on cyber security and trade secrets themselves, will have improved insights leading to better cyber security systems designs, data to test social policy and estimates of the value of trade secrets. Legal scholars will have access to a rich source of information to combine empirical analysis with theoretical approaches. Finally, the general public will benefit from enhanced security and improved policy environment. Improved cyber security means better protection of personal data. The policies informed by this research will encourage innovation. Innovation improves lives, as we enjoy new fashions, advanced aeroplanes and new medicines. However, one group is not likely to benefit: the would-be thieves and corporate spies who target trade secrets.

In recognition of the growing availability of data in key areas of policy, the PEC will introduce set piece UK-wide 'State of the Nation' reporting in each of four high-level priority thematic areas led by the four organisations that will make up the research consortium: 1. R&D, Innovation and Clusters (Sussex University); 2. Creative Education, Skills, Talent (Work Advance); 3. Internationalisation (Newcastle University), and 4. the Arts, Cultural & Heritage sectors (University of Sheffield) respectively. These reports will be specified in consultation with industry and policymakers, launched at regular biannual frequencies drawing on the RSA's events capacity and scheduled well in advance to facilitate planned engagement activities. We envisage the reports to include systematic tabular and chart-based sections on official and other publicly available economic and relevant social indicators as well as deep dives on issues of topical interest where more analysis is needed. The four thematic priority areas for regular reporting are partly informed by the need to avoid duplication of work covered within existing UK centres of excellence, such as the CREATe research centre at Glasgow University which specialises in intellectual property, regulation and competition issues, and areas like public sector broadcasting (PSB) where regular reporting is already available, such as through the media and communications reports from Ofcom. However, the PEC will still conduct primary research in such areas where important gaps in the evidence base are identified. As well as drawing on official and open data sources, the State of the Nation reports will extract insights from a new flagship longitudinal business panel that the PEC proposes to develop. This will involve collecting survey data from a panel of UK-based creative industries firms and firms in selected comparator sectors. In addition to the analytical deep dives in the State of the Nation reports, we intend that the PEC will make important original research contributions to the evidence base including from a large, multi-disciplinary network of PEC Research Fellows recruited from UK and overseas academic and private sector institutions. Fellows will be encouraged to bid for targeted calls for (co-)commissioned research. As well as being made aware of PEC research calls, the benefits of being a PEC Research Fellow will include: professional recognition and visibility; access to other PEC Research Fellows; the chance to shape the PEC's thematic priorities; opportunities to participate in policymaker engagement activities; opportunities to peer review PEC work, and invitations to present at PEC seminars and conferences. We will also fund a limited number of time-limited 'Small Networks' grants, focused on bringing together a group of PEC Research Fellows to interrogate a particular policy-relevant research area, promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing. The PEC's website will also serve as a platform for excellent policy-relevant research undertaken outside of the PEC. This will take the form of blogs, podcasts and Discussion Papers. We will also use our virtual and in-person events to bring to policymakers' attention important contributions from the wider academic literature in the UK and beyond. What differentiates the Creative Industries PEC from other policy-focused research centres is our embedded approach to knowledge exchange. That is, we embed PEC researchers and our Policy Unit personnel as much as possible in the policy planning, design and delivery processes of our key stakeholders. This embeddedness will continue to be a defining feature of our work: it will unlock the opportunity to help more researchers become more policy-literate, and to support policymakers to become more adept at using data and research evidence.