Expert Office Hours: IP Clinic for Founders and Growing Businesses

Join Mike Williams from Marks & Clerk for an Intellectual Property Clinic designed for founders and growing businesses. This special edition of our Expert Office Hours series focuses on helping founders understand and protect the value of their innovation through intellectual property.

Our expert

Mike specialises in patent matters relating to digital technologies, with particular expertise in artificial intelligence. He leads Marks and Clerk’s AI Reports, which analyse the impact of AI-related inventions on patent filings at the European Patent Office over the past two decades. With a master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Manchester, Mike has a strong technical foundation across a broad range of digital technologies.

His expertise spans artificial intelligence, signal processing, image analysis, communications protocols and computer graphics, as well as analogue and digital electronics and lithographic systems. Mike advises a diverse client base including startups, SMEs, universities and multinational companies. He has extensive experience drafting and prosecuting patent applications internationally and supports clients in navigating both commercial and contentious IP matters.

What to expect

Whether you are building new technology, developing software or exploring how to protect your ideas, this focused clinic will help you understand how IP can support your growth and competitive advantage. You will have the opportunity to discuss:

• Whether your innovations are patentable and how to identify protectable IP
• The different types of IP protection available, including patents, trade marks and designs
• Best practice for protecting software and AI-based inventions
• When to file and how to build an effective IP strategy
• Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
• How IP can support investment, partnerships and commercial growth
• What the patent process looks like from initial idea through to grant, in the UK and internationally