Priority themes for exploration

Purpose of these materials

These supporting materials explain the focuses in our Call for Evidence and Feedback and the rationale for these. 

Priority themes for exploration

We identified four broad themes to address in the early stages of the Review:

  • Understanding changing practice needs within the patent and trade mark attorney professions.
  • Exploring the professions’ learning and development cultures.
  • Optimising the integration of professional learning and development, work-based experience, and assessment of professional capability.
  • Widening entry to the professions, while upholding high professional standards.

The rationale for the four themes was that:

  • They aligned with key drivers for undertaking the Review.
  • They reflected issues and trends that have emerged in previous reviews.
  • They were designed to enable a strategic approach to understanding changing needs, and to avoid making assumptions about whether or what kind of change is needed.
  • They were designed to understand and build on current good practice.

We took a structured approach to addressing each theme, while acknowledging that the themes are interlinked. Our presentation of each theme includes the following:

  • A brief contextual summary.
  • The rationale for considering the theme within the Review.
  • Specific issues that we are keen to address through our Call for Evidence and Feedback. 

We sought evidence and feedback on the key themes to understand the following:

  • What is currently working well.
  • Changing needs in professional practice and the implications of these for the professions’ education and training.
  • Potential enhancements to current education and training arrangements to benefit all stakeholders (the public, consumers, employers, trainees, and the professions).
  • The implications of all the above for defining future IPReg education and training requirements. 

We were keen to understand how the key themes relate to the trade mark and patent attorney professions, respecting that there will be differences. Our approach was intended to: 

  • Uphold the Review’s intended focus on both professions.
  • Avoid making assumptions that the two professions’ needs are the same.
  • Maintain a balance in how the Review considers and addresses changing needs in each profession.

The questions on which we are invited feedback were deliberately generic.  

Four key themes further documentation: