Supporting staff wellbeing, mental health and work-life balance?

Dr Anna Molony, Co-founder & Director, Two IP

Anna co-founded her first patent firm, Chapman Molony, in 2003. After almost 10 years’ building Chapman Molony, she decided she wanted a better work-life balance, so she sold out of Chapman Molony and set up Ingenium IP. In 2020, just as the global pandemic hit, Anna decided that it was time to provide a vehicle for other patent attorneys to enjoy the work-life balance she had achieved. So she evolved Ingenium IP into Two IP, a ‘new breed consultancy model’ patent and trade mark firm, which enables consultant attorneys to work for their own clients under the Two IP brand and within Two IP’s ecosystem of back office, patent formalities and business support functions.

Michael Carter, Gowling WLG

Michael is a Director in Gowling WLG’s intellectual property practice, based in Birmingham. He has extensive experience managing patent and design litigation in the English courts (from IPEC to the High Court) and coordinating international patent litigation. In his role as Head of Automotive IP (UK) Michael also has experience of advising clients on transactional issues and the development of IP & innovation strategies more generally, particularly in the automotive and engineering sectors.

Penelope Aspinall

Penelope has over 30 years’ experience as a counsellor, psychotherapist and trainer, working in a range of settings, including Zeneca (Huddersfield), Arla Foods, the NHS and in private practice as a counsellor and organisational mental health consultant. However, most of her career has been spent working in Higher Education, most recently at the University of Bradford as Head of Disability, Counselling and Mental Health. She has been working with Jonathan’s Voice since 2019 and joined them as Mental Health Consultant and Lead trainer in early 2022.

Heather McCann, EIP

EIP was founded in October 2000 by Jerome Spaargaren. In 2002 Heather joined the then team of 3 at EIP from BT. Although the degree and level of involvement in growing EIP has changed over the last 22 years, she has been and remains very much part of the journey from 4 in London to 190 across London, Leeds, Bath, Cardiff, Dusseldorf, Stockholm and Denver. Our most valuable asset is our people, and mental health and wellbeing is – and has always been – a critical factor in developing EIP.

As a patent attorney, Heather divides her time between EIP’s offices in London and the US, from where she regularly advises Silicon Valley tech start-ups, SMEs and US law firms on European patent filing and prosecution strategy She has significant experience in drafting and prosecuting patent applications broadly in the field of software, with particular expertise in telecommunications inventions. She has represented clients at opposition and appeal proceedings at the EPO on numerous occasions, and provides support on patent litigation matters, worldwide and has extensive experience of developing, communicating and implementing IP strategies.

Angela Quinlan, Key Patent Innovations

As Managing Director of Key Patent Innovations, Angela is responsible for developing and implementing monetisation strategies for Key Patent’s portfolios, as well as managing new acquisitions and business development. In this role, she relies on her experience which spans all aspects of patent management and licensing. Angela was identified as number 16 in the Top 40 IP Market Makers of 2023 and has been consistently recognized as one of the world’s leading IP strategists (IAM Strategy 300) for the last number of years. Angela is also a member of the European Patent Institute’s IP Commercialization committee. Angela started KPI in 2020 in the depths of Covid and, as such, one of the core principles of the company is that it works in a way that is sustainable both for its employees and the communities in which we live and work. As part of fulfilling this, KPI has been very proud to partner with sports teams in our communities all the way from local under-10s teams to the Irish Olympic team.