NOVEMBER 2007
The front line of the patent battle
Nokia's Tim Frain brings to the presidency of TMPDF battle scars from the debate over the CII directive. James Nurton spoke to him about patent policy, phone standards and the IP triangle
| Tim Frain |
Tim Frain is director of IPR regulatory affairs for telecoms company Nokia, based in the UK. After studying physics at Imperial College, London University, he applied to work at Philips and was offered a job in the patent department: "At that time, I had never read a patent, never seen a patent. But I went along to Philips's patent department and spent a day with them. And they took me down to the Patent Office and showed me patents and explained what they did." He joined Philips in 1977, the same year that the European Patent Office opened. "I couldn't believe that this kind of job actually existed. The possibility of bringing the law and science together, and what it required in terms of self-discipline, understanding of the English language, analysis and interpretation were all things that appealed to me," he explains.
Frain stayed at Philips for seven years, working mainly in semiconductor technology. "It was very much blue-sky sort of research. And the stuff that we were patenting was not going to see the light of day for 20 years-plus," he says. While at Philips, he also became interested in the commercial impact of IP, which led to him joining Rank Xerox, where he stayed for four years. In 1988 he joined a company called Technophone – based in Camberley, Surrey – which was developing and making some of the first mobile phones, where he started a patent department from scratch. Technophone was acquired by Nokia in 1991 and Frain and his department became pivotal in the development of the Finnish company's patent operation. Since then he has held various senior positions in the Nokia IPR department.
This summer, Frain was elected president of the Trade Marks Patents and Designs Federation (TMPDF), which represents UK-based companies in IP policy and practice matters in the UK and Europe. He will serve in the post for two years. |
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