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Supporting Green Ventures

WRAP offer a range of business support services targeted at the recycling/reprocessing sector. They offer funding to enable new and existing businesses to receive expert support to evaluate and understand the potential intellectual property (IP) they may have and the steps they need to take in order to protect it.

“This is a relatively new and very fast-growing sector, with little understanding of IP issues,” says WRAP Business Projects Manager, Nick Kightley,  “which is why IP support is a key service that we offer to entrepreneurs, not just to ensure that they protect their valuable ideas, but also to ensure that they know how to exploit the business opportunity this represents.”

Venner Shipley is one of a small number of firms of patent and trade mark attorneys authorised to provide services to WRAP’s clients.  The service is a two-phase approach – the first phase is an IP appraisal that assesses existing and potential IP associated risks and opportunities. If potential IP is identified then, subject to the advisor's recommendations and WRAP approval, phase two funding will be provided towards the protection of that IP.

For example, Venner Shipley has been involved with issues of branding and licensing. The Paper Trail Mill, based near Hemel Hempstead, runs a scheme called ‘The Paper Magic Project’, which closes the recycling loop by collecting used paper from schools and recycling it into new paper products that are then sold back to schools.

Paul Stenning, Marketing Manager at The Paper Trail said, “We recognised the need to establish a brand for our scheme and make sure that its name would not be used by other companies in any way that could detrimentally impact on our reputation”.  They applied to WRAP’s support scheme and Venner Shipley was brought in to assess the potential for IP protection. We concluded that the most appropriate protection would be a trade mark, helping the company to become more established in the market place.  The initial trade mark chosen was not available, but further searches resulted in the selection of ‘RECYCLE FOR LEARNING’, which is now a registered trade mark.