Patenting and intellectual property are challenges for our company,' he says. Back then, people were not so aware of the importance of intellectual property and trade secrets. He developed technology for BHP to coat the inside of blast furnaces which extended their life by a factor of two, and it is now an accepted standard around the world. I think it is important not to reinvent the wheel,' he says. We don't copy patents that already exist-they just give us an idea of a direction we could follow and improve on.
People become fixated on the tangibles and forget to look at the bigger picture.
IP is one of the strong driving forces behind the successful growth of a company. It's about being sensible. For example, a company should lodge a patent only in the specific countries where it will be doing business because it may be a complete waste of money lodging it around the world. Ashbolt believes that IP Australia is an essential aide to those companies needing direction and guidance through the complexities of IP, and that it has greatly improved its range of offerings to the IP-naive individual and company. It has reduced the paperwork overload.