Partner
Chartered Patent Attorney
European Patent Attorney
UK Design Attorney
MA Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge
LLB, Open University
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Richard is a highly experienced patent attorney working across a range of high-tech fields, with particular interests in cryptography, telecommunications, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing – the more complex the technology, the better. His practice is split between large corporate clients and start-ups and scale-ups, and his primary motivation is to make sure that his clients obtain, maintain, and use their intellectual property in the way that makes the most commercial sense for them.
Richard’s career has had two main phases since qualification. Prior to joining Keltie, he spent ten years at Hewlett-Packard, where he led the company's UK IP Section. Much of Richard's work at HP was with the company's corporate research lab, HP Labs, where he led the team providing IP support to HP Labs worldwide, managing a team of attorneys across several countries including the UK and the US. He has been a partner at Keltie since 2012 working mainly in the IT, Telecoms and Electronics team – this has allowed him to develop his professional and commercial skills further, and apply them to a wider range of clients, technologies, and situations.
Richard would describe his career highlights to date as being those where his work has made the most practical difference to his client, or has had the most impact on the world. Examples include the following:
Drafting a series of patents for digital scanning technology which has been used in most of the world’s optical mice;
Developing a patent portfolio and an IP strategy for a potential spin-out designed to benefit all parties – with the resulting spin-out succeeding in subsequent funding rounds, bringing two generations of product to market, and being bought by its major customer;
Drafting and prosecuting to grant some of the earliest patent applications for quantum logic gates;
Turning around a campaign involving a set of oppositions to European patents for a telecoms technology from early failure to eventual success;
Developing IP strategies to support the commercial strategies of start-ups, scale-ups, multinationals, and third sector organisations – and staying involved to make sure that the strategies work.
Richard has been an active member of the Patents and Computer Technology Committees of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA) for a number of years – he has participated in the past in the Education Committee of CIPA, the IP Federation, and the Patent Managers’ Group.
Richard has also been recognised in Legal 500 2024 edition.
Away from the office, Richard’s interests include ultrarunning, coffee, bridge, and reading (and occasionally writing) fiction.
23.10.2020
Richard Lawrence - my top three inventions.Three inventions which have helped shape the way we live our lives.
15.08.2023
Sufficiency at the EPO for AI inventionsAt the European Patent Office, for the purposes of examination, applications disclosing and claiming subject matter relating to Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning are treated in a similar manner to applications disclosing and claiming subject matter relating to other types of mathematical methods or algorithms implemented on a computer (see the EPO’s Guidelines for Examination (GfE) on AI inventions).
09.08.2023
Take your rest this AugustOtherLess related knowledge
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