Brits Mean Business

When I was a child I had a plan. I wanted to become an inventor. The main invention I was aiming for was to create flying French fries. I thought it would be awfully handy if fried potatoes could just come flying on demand.

Flying French fries sound quite imaginative and while we have mastered flying and can certainly make excellent French fries (do I dare to mention the national British treat – fish & chips), the achievement of making them leave the plate by themselves remains to be realised.

However, looking back at the last decade, other pretty outlandish products and new behavioural norms have developed. The internet, for example, has fundamentally changed the way we work, communicate, read news and consume entertainment. We now all have the potential to be managers and publishers of online content. We talk about the Communications Revolution and a Digital Economy. According to a McKinsey study, during the last five years, the internet has contributed to GDP growth in the G8 countries with as much as 20% of total economic growth. And the numbers seem to be increasing.

With new inventions we do not only get new behaviour, but often also a shifting of processes and business models. Change is essential for development, but the complexity of the changes presents challenges for both regulators and companies. 

In the UK, we have great focus on growing our economy and are very keen on being able to capitalise on the digital growth spurt, both within the UK and even more so in an international context. We have been looking at opportunities to strengthen our offering in the digital sector and ways to cooperate within the EU, for example. At the same time, we have realised that in order to be able to succeed, we need to wholeheartedly address the new complexity and the changes that the Digital Economy brings.

Analysing the basic needs for digital growth, we have come to the conclusion that we might need to review the use of intellectual property (IP). IP law is basically a way to safeguard a creator’s ownership of achievements and inventions and give the creator the ability to profit from his efforts. Good and well known examples of IP are copyright, trademarks and patents. However, IP is solidly based on the “old economy” and thus the question arose about whether it also was properly applicable for the Digital Economy?

In 2010, our PM David Cameron commissioned Professor Ian Hargreaves to head an independent review into how the international property framework might support growth and innovation in the Digital Economy. In 2011, Professor Hargreaves published the well received Hargreaves Review – or as it is officially called “Digital Opportunity – A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth”. The report outlined ten different suggestions to improve the IP framework, in order to tackle the new digital challenges. The suggestions included creating an efficient digital copyright licensing system, with exceptions in copyright which could encourage successful new digital technology businesses. It further recommended the government to craft a more agile patent system and to refresh the institutional governance of the UK’s IP system. The impact of all the suggestions was calculated to amount to an increase in GDP growth of 0.3-0.6%. 

UKTI in Sweden recently co-sponsored an event addressing just these issues. We invited Professor Hargreaves to Stockholm to talk about his views and recommendations in the Swedish parliament to a distinguished audience of regulators and business representatives. It was very interesting to listen to his analysis and recommendations, but what was made abundantly clear was that the issue is certainly not “British-only”, but a matter we need to address in Sweden and in other parts of Europe. Even if Sweden has fairly modern copyright regulation (by international standards), we need to join forces in the expanding network economy. Or as Professor Hargreaves put it so well: “Europe needs a united context that will grow the world economy – stimulate creativity while giving the rules for an open market.”

I can’t help hoping that Professor Hargreaves’ thoughts will get more European attention, because a networked economy with extensive trade and investments is never local and we all need growing economies and expanded horizons.

And as for the French fries – there may well come a day when even getting them flying is possible, but until then I will happily keep using my fork.

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Being named Jenny in history class in secondary school posed somewhat of a challenge. According to our Swedish history books, a machine called Spinning Jenny was the origin of the industrial revolution that started in the UK and spread over Europe. It was not only fascinating to learn how a cotton twisting and spinning machine could have such impact on the economy, but also discover what fun your fellow students could have spending their time combining your name with different odd verbs. Not to mention all the new verbs that were invented in this exercise.

Needless to say the early industrial inventions and the following revolution left a lasting impression on me.

At the beginning of the summer I was reminded of inventions that lead to big economic change, this time luckily with no obvious connection to my first name. I was attending an international conference in Stockholm called ‘Broadband For All’.

Broadband is a popular word used for describing wired or wireless access via high data rate to an Internet connection. Broadband these days simply means being able to transfer high quantities of data via for example glass fibre, the mobile network or even in rural areas via satellite. In comprehending all these fantastic things we are, and will be able to do, via this developing technology I could not help comparing the telephone, the computer and the Internet with its predecessor – they are all the Spinning Jennys of the communication age. And with the same kind of comparison – broadband is most probably the “railway” of the future – but built with glass fibre and phone towers instead of iron and timber.

The Broadband roll-out is probably one of the most important global infrastructure investments this century and it is a priority area for the UK government. At UK Trade and Investment, where I’m Director of Trade & Investment for Sweden, we are taking part in this process by facilitating knowledge, investments and trade between the UK and Sweden. And, as always, network technology builds on the idea that more and merrier participants give greater possibilities.

And in tandem with the broadband roll-out we will most probably again discover even more groundbreaking machines, products, apps and services. But next time around I hope the names will be different. The follow up to Jenny was a machine that was adapted to slubbing – the much less known “Slubbing Billy” – so if I may make a wish for the next generation of inventors; we Jennys have had our fair share of name calling – let’s go for a Billy next time.

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