How ocado integrated ip into its workflows
Contents
- What IP challenges help you stay awake during the night?
- Exactly what does your team seem like and just how will it fit inside the business?
- Have you got any advice for other IP managers searching to streamline their processes or better integrate IP in to the business?
- What IP challenges help you stay awake during the night?
- Exactly what does your team seem like and just how will it fit inside the business?
- Have you got any advice for other IP managers searching to streamline their processes or better integrate IP in to the business?
- What drove the refocus to R&D at Ocado?
- What sort of tech are you currently searching to build up later on?
- What were the difficulties in managing that change?
Lucy Wojcik, mind of IP at United kingdom online supermarket Ocado, informs Patent Strategy the way the business grew to become R&D focused after which embedded IP into its workflows to higher safeguard its innovations
Despite appearances, United kingdom online supermarket Ocado happens to be a tech-focused company.
Since its creation in 2000, its founders and former merchant bankers Jonathan Faiman, Jason Gissing and Tim Steiner were dedicated to using technologies within an interesting method to make grocery delivery more effective.
They’d negotiate with suppliers to push the limitations of the technologies to make sure that small efficiencies were created at each stage from the warehouse delivery tactic to boost the margins and make up a viable business design.
However in 2014, the organization made the decision to check out new methods to drive efficiency wins. Instead of relying mainly on the other party’s technologies and finding clever methods for with them, the company would increase its R&D and begin creating its very own innovations to create processes even faster.
The Ocado leaders rapidly realized they’d require a more powerful IP function to assist them to safeguard these new assets. That’s once they introduced in Lucy Wojcik is the business’s new mind of IP in 2014.
“I was introduced into the organization also it was obvious in those days that it hadn’t been just a retail business,” she informs Patent Strategy. “I remember thinking before that: ‘There can’t be anything clever in delivering beans – why have I been asked to have an interview?’
“But getting came and labored here, and searching at its history, Ocado happens to be a tech company and try to pressed the boundaries with whatever solutions it’s. That’s been the situation whether we’ve been buying things out of the box and taking advantage of it in interesting ways or perhaps in using our very own tech.”
She adds that one of the reasons this innovative culture was present in the industry was the straightforward nature of delivering groceries. Delivering dvd’s and books is simple. Delivering groceries, which have to be stored and transported at a specific temperature where the margins are very small, is a lot harder.
“Every second it can save you within the warehouse and each method for you to remove points of failure from the machine is really a win,” states Wojcik. “And Ocado is doing that forever.”
In addition to making enhancements in mechanical engineering, Ocado, taking inspiration in the shipping container industry, is promoting its software expertise and it is using programs to simulate new warehouse processes and make digital prints to check new environments before the organization builds them.
“We don’t go out one morning and make a warehouse. There’s a lot of data science which goes in it,” she states. “We understand how they operate, in which the sticking points is going to be and test them out. We will discover what goes on if something reduces, or if it’s a really hot on that day, or we obtain procuring orders, for instance.”
Her job then ended up being to make certain that IP grew to become an important business function which her department was doing everything it might to locate and safeguard what Ocado was inventing that may add value and drive competitive advantage.
She informs Patent Strategy more inside a Q&A:
What IP challenges help you stay awake during the night?
There are numerous things. I must spin plates – everything related to IP is all about juggling. Everybody is sources-restricted – that we don’t mean to seem negative. My team, in the end, has bending previously six several weeks but my workload has quadrupled.
From the litigation perspective, my job would be to clearly make certain we don’t enter into any. We perform a large amount of freedom to function searches and understand what information mill doing what. Although we may provide the impression to be less risk-averse than others, my job would be to make certain that it’s a qualified risk.
Then there’s the company strategy. It’s very easy within an IP team to get some an ivory tower. We have to make sure that at every stage we fall into the business strategy. There’s no reason protecting stuff that the company isn’t thinking about progressing.
And you will find the small jobs for example making certain engineers don’t disclose anything too soon. We don’t want videos online offering our ideas.
But overall I’m very lucky to possess a supportive management team and that i hope all of us sleep during the night. We’ve the best procedures, people and policies in position. As not sleeping during the night, we’re not performing right.
Exactly what does your team seem like and just how will it fit inside the business?
We’ve two properly accredited patent attorneys and something European patent attorney. We have another attorney beginning in November after which another in The month of january, along with a full-time IP landscape expert who lots of use the engineers to know the backdrop and IP landscape make certain in.
We have one vacancy, so we are a group of eight before the center of the coming year. And we’re all busy – there’s no hanging out twiddling thumbs.
I favour in-house teams simply because they all can work inside the engineering teams. The lawyer that has been beside me a long sits beside me so we discuss patent issues, but also, he would go to the engineering conferences and it is baked into the part he takes care of.
My attorneys have a division they operate in that they’re a part of, alongside finding yourself in the IP team.
My job there’s ensuring we’re locating the important inventions – those that matter to the organization – and now we safeguard these questions sensible quantity of jurisdictions where they increase the value of the organization.
We’ve regular prioritisation conferences with heads of divisions to determine what individuals will work on and see whether it’s important or game-altering and requires protecting.
Have you got any advice for other IP managers searching to streamline their processes or better integrate IP in to the business?
There’s two things I recommend.
The very first is to put on two hats. You can’t sit within the legal department and issue orders – you’ve got to be on the floor and, within my situation, within the warehouse and speaking towards the teams. By embedding yourself within the processes you may be more area of the team. That provides us the opportunity to become more agile.
So try to be agile and undertake the persona of those you train with.
Another would be to communicate. It is crucial that you receive the IP message across in five summary sentences. The folks I cope with, both above and ‘below’ me, don’t have time that i can explain IP within the detail I want these to comprehend it in.
Lucy Wojcik, mind of IP at United kingdom online supermarket Ocado, informs Patent Strategy the way the business grew to become R&D focused after which embedded IP into its workflows to higher safeguard its innovations
Despite appearances, United kingdom online supermarket Ocado happens to be a tech-focused company.
Since its creation in 2000, its founders and former merchant bankers Jonathan Faiman, Jason Gissing and Tim Steiner were dedicated to using technologies within an interesting method to make grocery delivery more effective.
They’d negotiate with suppliers to push the limitations of the technologies to make sure that small efficiencies were created at each stage from the warehouse delivery tactic to boost the margins and make up a viable business design.
However in 2014, the organization made the decision to check out new methods to drive efficiency wins. Instead of relying mainly on the other party’s technologies and finding clever methods for with them, the company would increase its R&D and begin creating its very own innovations to create processes even faster.
The Ocado leaders rapidly realized they’d require a more powerful IP function to assist them to safeguard these new assets. That’s once they introduced in Lucy Wojcik is the business’s new mind of IP in 2014.
“I was introduced into the organization also it was obvious in those days that it hadn’t been just a retail business,” she informs Patent Strategy. “I remember thinking before that: ‘There can’t be anything clever in delivering beans – why have I been asked to have an interview?’
“But getting came and labored here, and searching at its history, Ocado happens to be a tech company and try to pressed the boundaries with whatever solutions it’s. That’s been the situation whether we’ve been buying things out of the box and taking advantage of it in interesting ways or perhaps in using our very own tech.”
She adds that one of the reasons this innovative culture was present in the industry was the straightforward nature of delivering groceries. Delivering dvd’s and books is simple. Delivering groceries, which have to be stored and transported at a specific temperature where the margins are very small, is a lot harder.
“Every second it can save you within the warehouse and each method for you to remove points of failure from the machine is really a win,” states Wojcik. “And Ocado is doing that forever.”
In addition to making enhancements in mechanical engineering, Ocado, taking inspiration in the shipping container industry, is promoting its software expertise and it is using programs to simulate new warehouse processes and make digital prints to check new environments before the organization builds them.
“We don’t go out one morning and make a warehouse. There’s a lot of data science which goes in it,” she states. “We understand how they operate, in which the sticking points is going to be and test them out. We will discover what goes on if something reduces, or if it’s a really hot on that day, or we obtain procuring orders, for instance.”
Her job then ended up being to make certain that IP grew to become an important business function which her department was doing everything it might to locate and safeguard what Ocado was inventing that may add value and drive competitive advantage.
She informs Patent Strategy more inside a Q&A:
What IP challenges help you stay awake during the night?
There are numerous things. I must spin plates – everything related to IP is all about juggling. Everybody is sources-restricted – that we don’t mean to seem negative. My team, in the end, has bending previously six several weeks but my workload has quadrupled.
From the litigation perspective, my job would be to clearly make certain we don’t enter into any. We perform a large amount of freedom to function searches and understand what information mill doing what. Although we may provide the impression to be less risk-averse than others, my job would be to make certain that it’s a qualified risk.
Then there’s the company strategy. It’s very easy within an IP team to get some an ivory tower. We have to make sure that at every stage we fall into the business strategy. There’s no reason protecting stuff that the company isn’t thinking about progressing.
And you will find the small jobs for example making certain engineers don’t disclose anything too soon. We don’t want videos online offering our ideas.
But overall I’m very lucky to possess a supportive management team and that i hope all of us sleep during the night. We’ve the best procedures, people and policies in position. As not sleeping during the night, we’re not performing right.
Exactly what does your team seem like and just how will it fit inside the business?
We’ve two properly accredited patent attorneys and something European patent attorney. We have another attorney beginning in November after which another in The month of january, along with a full-time IP landscape expert who lots of use the engineers to know the backdrop and IP landscape make certain in.
We have one vacancy, so we are a group of eight before the center of the coming year. And we’re all busy – there’s no hanging out twiddling thumbs.
I favour in-house teams simply because they all can work inside the engineering teams. The lawyer that has been beside me a long sits beside me so we discuss patent issues, but also, he would go to the engineering conferences and it is baked into the part he takes care of.
My attorneys have a division they operate in that they’re a part of, alongside finding yourself in the IP team.
My job there’s ensuring we’re locating the important inventions – those that matter to the organization – and now we safeguard these questions sensible quantity of jurisdictions where they increase the value of the organization.
We’ve regular prioritisation conferences with heads of divisions to determine what individuals will work on and see whether it’s important or game-altering and requires protecting.
Have you got any advice for other IP managers searching to streamline their processes or better integrate IP in to the business?
There’s two things I recommend.
The very first is to put on two hats. You can’t sit within the legal department and issue orders – you’ve got to be on the floor and, within my situation, within the warehouse and speaking towards the teams. By embedding yourself within the processes you may be more area of the team. That provides us the opportunity to become more agile.
So try to be agile and undertake the persona of those you train with.
Another would be to communicate. It is crucial that you receive the IP message across in five summary sentences. The folks I cope with, both above and ‘below’ me, don’t have time that i can explain IP within the detail I want these to comprehend it in.
Always say things rapidly and to the stage.
What drove the refocus to R&D at Ocado?
It is not easy that i can comment. When it comes to our bodies and offering, what drove that improvement was customer uptake in our online offering.
When we take a look at 2000 when Ocado began, everyone was not ordering things online – or at best not groceries. We’re now in a point where individuals wish to order their dinner when they’re standing around the stop, and wish it delivered when they go back home.
There’s someone drive, and when you appear at our legacy systems, a typical size order may take 2 to 4 hrs to choose and get ready for dispatch in our ‘legacy warehouses.’
Our new systems enable an identical size to be selected within minutes. With clever delivery routing and software systems, our customers can order what they need in the platform also it can be delivered promptly.
Understanding the people Sometimes with, I believe which was the beginning within the change of focus from off-the-shelf tech to the own innovations.
What sort of tech are you currently searching to build up later on?
I’m able to recommend our CEO’s presentation towards the city in Feb where he demonstrated a diagram of areas and verticals where our tech might be used. We’re already involved with vertical farming and we’re searching at other locations where we are able to add our understanding and competencies to create efficiencies.
We’re also disrupting inside us grocery delivery.
Our Chief executive officer frequently highlights that we’re an innovation factory: so it’s dependent on searching at what we’re proficient at and putting it on with other places. Should you take a look at a few of the fields we’re searching at now, some look as if we’ve gone a little mad as well as in some it’s apparent in which the synergy is.
All individuals mean overcoming problems – and once you have issues that require solutions and engineers, you’re generating IP.
What were the difficulties in managing that change?
There is challenging in getting a large number of highly intelligent individuals the organisation with amazing ideas, there was just me to handle IP in it.
The main one factor I didn’t possess a issue with was understanding and support from senior management. They understood IP and understood it was vital which needed doing. There are several companies where IP departments battle to be heard and that’s and not the situation here.
The primary issues we’d was the rate where we’re able to safeguard IP when compared to sheer pressure of nature from the Ocado engineering teams – they’re so quick.
In my experience at occasions, it believed after i was writing up one patent, they had been around the 4th evolution from the technology so we had only began the other day. They’re fast-moving and don’t take no to have an answer and extremely do it now. Therefore it would be a fantastic challenge to utilize such motivated people and seeking to create it altogether.
Resourse: https://patentstrategy.managingip.com/articles/110/
