Cambridge One year on
This article was taken from the Venner Shipley Newsletter edition 22.
It is now over 12 months since Venner Shipley Cambridge first opened its doors on the Cambridge Business Park. And what an eventful year it has been!
From the big opening celebration held at the Fitzwilliam Museum last November, with guest speaker Sir Hugh Laddie, the signing up of new clients, the sponsorships of local events and the expansion of the team, this last year has been a busy one for the Cambridge team, headed up by Dr Pawel Piotrowicz.
‘If we had any doubts about the need for a Cambridge office, these were soon dispelled,’ he says. ‘Our existing clients really appreciate our greater accessibility and now we have many more clients who look to us for local support.’
Venner Shipley Cambridge has attracted many new clients from start-ups to multi-million pound companies. The expanding client base has resulted in the recruitment of David Taylor, who joined in August as an Associate and who specialises in filing and prosecuting patent applications in the field of electronics and computer software.
The team, including Dr Allie Elend and Dr Isla Furlong, has been hard at work ‘networking’ with the local industrial and academic community, through the sponsorship of events and by providing support in the most practical way by running workshops and giving free IP advice and consultancy. Venner Shipley was a ‘silver sponsor’ of the recent Cambridge Enterprise’s Celebration of Biotechnology, presented workshops at the University’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning Summer School (Ignite) and has supported two Eastern Region Biotech Initiative functions.
And then, of course, there’s Pawel Piotrowicz’s radio career! Pav was interviewed on BBC Radio Cambridge at the time of the opening, last autumn, so when it came to World Intellectual Property Day in April, he was asked to appear as a guest on Sue Dougan’s afternoon radio show, where he fielded questions from listeners interested in all aspects of patent protection and copyright.