Protecting your intellectual property and selling it

Intellectual Property - group of rights used to protect literary, artistic and industrial property. Generally separated into the categories of: • Copyright • Trade marks • Designs • Patents But also extends to specific subject matter of plant variety rights and circuit layouts and general information that is confidential such as trade secrets and protection of goodwill and reputation through the action of passing off. New information, be it a new computer program or novel device, developed by an organisation is valuable to it. So too is the organisation name and reputation. While some protection is automatic, like copyright, other protection and rights must be obtained under various legislation. When dealing with employees and third parties, ownership of existing and new rights needs to be clearly established so that rights are not lost. Obligations in relation to the use of certain property and any confidential information must also be clearly established...

Ageing of people with an intellectual disability: Effective training for frontline workers

While the attainment of late life represents a significant achievement for people with an intellectual disability, increased life expectancy has resulted in growing concerns about the extent to which disability service providers are ready to meet the changing needs of increasing numbers of older people and facilitate their ongoing social inclusion. Training of frontline disability staff is widely accepted as an effective strategy for increasing organisational capacity to contribute to improved quality of life for people with an intellectual disability. The study identifies training needs analyses and 'ready-to-deliver' training programs for frontline disability services staff working with adults with an intellectual disability who are ageing, assesses whether the training programs contribute to improved quality of life outcomes for service users, and makes recommendations for future research and development of training for disability services staff who work with older people with intellectual disability.

UK Design as a Global Industry : International Trade and Intellectual Property

The importance of design to the UK economy is widely recognised. It is one of the key pillars of the knowledge economy, it plays an important role in the innovation process, and it is one of a number of specialisms that help to set the UK apart from global competition. But despite this importance, the nature of design-intensive industries – the businesses that practice and sell design – is remarkably hard to pin down. This uncertainty renders it hard to analyse, and makes it difficult to develop clear, consistent policies to support the designers. The Hargreaves Review recommended that more research was needed to develop a clear evidence base for improving the intellectual property system for design. This report forms part of that evidence base. It examines how UK design figures in the global economy, and considers how the intellectual property system can best support its growth.

UK Design as a global industry : international trade and intellectual property Executive Summary

This is an independent report comissioned by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and supported by the Design Council.

The assessment of mental health in children with intellectual disability

Aim: Individuals with intellectual disability (ID) have higher rates of mental health problems than the general population. Assessment tends to rely heavily on self-report, but persons with ID often have difficulties in identifying and describing their own thoughts and feelings. Measures that are psychometrically sound with typically developing populations may not be as robust in samples with ID. The aim of the current study was to examine a range of self-report measures for assessing the mental health of children with ID, and to consider the appropriateness of minor modifications to those instruments. Method: The participants were 58 children with ID (mean 11.7 years) attending Year 6 in mainstream primary schools. At the first time point they completed four established measures of depression, anxiety and mood. Minor modifications were made to wording and format at re-administration six months later. Results: Internal consistency varied considerably across measures. Modifications resulted in small or no improvements, but the results were relatively consistent over time and across similar measures. Some gender differences were evident. Conclusions: The findings confirm the difficulties that children with ID may have when responding to self-report measures of mental health, and suggest that care should be taken in choice of instruments. While modifications can produce small improvements, it is clear that more robust measures of mental health are needed for persons with ID.

Child characteristics associated with delay of gratification in children with Down syndrome

Aim: Children with Down syndrome have been identified as having difficulty delaying gratification when compared to mental age matched children who are developing typically. This study investigated the association between individual characteristics hypopthesized to be associated with ability to delay as well as the strategies children used in a waiting task. Method: Thirty-two children with Down syndrome and 50 typically developing children matched for mental age completed the tasks. Observations of their behaviour while waiting were video-recorded for later analysis. In addition, parents completed questionnaires with respect to their child’s personality and behaviour. Results: Children with Down syndrome were significantly less able to delay gratification than the comparison group. Different patterns of association were found for the two groups between the observational and questionnaire measures and delay time. Conclusions: Children with Down syndrome have greater difficulty delaying gratification than would be predicted on the basis of their mental age. The contributions to delay appear to differ from those for typically developing children and these differences need to be considered when planning interventions for developing this skill

Strategy use of children with Down syndrome in a delay of gratification situation

Background: The capacity to delay gratification has been shown to be a very important developmental task for children who are developing typically. There is evidence that children with Down syndrome have more difficulty with a delay of gratification task than typically developing children of the same mental age. This study focused on the strategies children with Down syndrome use while in a delay of gratification situation to ascertain if these contribute to the differences in delay times from those of typically developing children. Method: Thirty-two children with Down syndrome (15 females) and 50 typically developing children participated in the study. Children with Down syndrome had a mental age, as measured by the Stanford-Binet IV, between 36 and 66 months (M = 45.66). The typically developing children had a mean chronological age of 45.76 months. Children participated in a delay of gratification task where they were offered two or one small treats and asked which they preferred. They were then told that they could have the two treats if they waited for the researcher to return (an undisclosed time of 15 min). If they did not want to wait any longer they could call the researcher back but then they could have only one treat. Twenty-two of the children with Down syndrome and 43 of the typically developing children demonstrated understanding of the task and their data are included here. Sessions were videotaped for later analysis. Results: There were significant differences in the mean waiting times of the two groups. The mean of the waiting times for children with Down syndrome was 181.32 s (SD = 347.62) and was 440.21 s (SD = 377.59) for the typically developing children. Eighteen percent of the group with Down syndrome waited for the researcher to return in comparison to 35% of the typically developing group. Sixty-four percent of children with Down syndrome called the researcher back and the remainder (18%) violated. In the typically developing group 37% called the researcher back and 28% violated. The mean waiting time for the group of children with Down syndrome who called the researcher back was 24 s. Examination of strategy use in this group was therefore very limited. There appeared to be quite similar strategy use across the groups who waited the full 15 min. Conclusions: These results confirm the difficulty children with Down syndrome have in delaying gratification. Teaching strategies for waiting, using information drawn from the behaviours of children who are developing typically may be a useful undertaking. Examination of other contributors to delay ability (e.g., language skills) is also likely to be helpful in understanding the difficulties demonstrated in delaying gratification.

Assessing intellectual functioning in young adolescents : how do the WISC-IV and SB5 compare?

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) and the Stanford-Binet – Fifth Edition (SB5) are two of the most commonly used intelligence tests for children and adolescents. No comparative studies of the WISC-IV and SB5 have yet been published. In the current study the WISC-IV and SB5 were administered in counterbalanced order to 30 typically-developing 12- to 14-year-old adolescents. There was a significant difference between Full Scale IQs on the two measures, with scores being higher on the WISC-IV. A significant difference was also found between Verbal IQs and there were large score differences for some participants. The paper concludes that the WISC-IV and SB5 cannot be presumed to be interchangeable measures of intelligence.

Active ageing among older adults with lifelong intellectual disabilities : the role of familial and nonfamilial social networks

Little research has examined the extent to which active ageing is facilitated by family and nonfamilial support persons of older adults with intellectual disabilities. This study explores the role played by key unpaid carers/support persons of older adults with lifelong intellectual disabilities in facilitating "active ageing." Little research has examined the extent to which active ageing is facilitated by family and nonfamilial support persons of older adults with intellectual disabilities. This study explores the role played by key unpaid carers/support persons of older adults with lifelong intellectual disabilities in facilitating “active ageing.” All key social network members conceived active ageing to mean ongoing activity. Family and extended family members were found to play a crucial role in facilitating independent living and providing opportunities for recreational pursuits for those living in group homes. Members of religious organizations and group home staff provided the same types of opportunities where family support was absent. The findings suggest the need for improvements in resource provision, staff training, and group home policy and building design.

A Systems-level approach to building sustainable assessment cultures : moderation, quality task design and dependability of judgement

This paper considers the conditions that are necessary at system and local levels for teacher assessment to be valid, reliable and rigorous. With sustainable assessment cultures as a goal, the paper examines how education systems can support local level efforts for quality learning and dependable teacher assessment. This is achieved through discussion of relevant research and consideration of a case study involving an evaluation of a cross-sectoral approach to promoting confidence in school-based assessment in Queensland, Australia. Building on the reported case study, essential characteristics for developing sustainable assessment cultures are presented, including: leadership in learning; alignment of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment; the design of quality assessment tasks and accompanying standards, and evidence-based judgement and moderation. Taken together, these elements constitute a new framework for building assessment capabilities and promoting quality assurance.

Digital technologies and musical participation for people with intellectual disabilities

Research on the aspirations of people with intellectual disabilities documents the importance of alternative zones of inclusion where they can assert their own definitions of ability and normality. This stands in contrast to assumptions concerning technology and disability that position technology as ‘normalising’ the disabled body. This paper reports on the role of a digital music jamming tool in providing access to creative practice by people with intellectual disabilities. The tool contributed to the development of a spatio-temporal zone to enable aesthetic agency within and beyond the contexts of deinstitutionalised care. The research identifies the interactions among tools, individuals and groups that facilitated participants’ agency in shaping the form of musical practice. Further, we document the properties of emergent interaction - supported by a tool oriented to enabling music improvisation - as potentially resisting assumptions regarding normalisation.

Relationship between the nature of the search task types and query reformulation behaviour

Success of query reformulation and relevant information retrieval depends on many factors, such as users’ prior knowledge, age, gender, and cognitive styles. One of the important factors that affect a user’s query reformulation behaviour is that of the nature of the search tasks. Limited studies have examined the impact of the search task types on query reformulation behaviour while performing Web searches. This paper examines how the nature of the search tasks affects users’ query reformulation behaviour during information searching. The paper reports empirical results from a user study in which 50 participants performed a set of three Web search tasks – exploratory, factorial and abstract. Users’ interactions with search engines were logged by using a monitoring program. 872 unique search queries were classified into five query types – New, Add, Remove, Replace and Repeat. Users submitted fewer queries for the factual task, which accounted for 26%. They completed a higher number of queries (40% of the total queries) while carrying out the exploratory task. A one-way MANOVA test indicated a significant effect of search task types on users’ query reformulation behaviour. In particular, the search task types influenced the manner in which users reformulated the New and Repeat queries.

A pragmatic approach to intellectual property and development : a case study of the Jordanian copyright law in the internet age

On October 4, 2004, Brazil and Argentina requested that WIPO adopt a development-oriented approach to IP and to reconsider its work in relation to developing countries. In October, 2007, WIPO member States adopted a historic decision for the benefit of developing countries, to establish a WIPO Development Agenda. Although there have been several studies related to IP and development that call for IP laws in developing countries to be development-friendly, there is little research that attempts to provide developing countries with practical measures to achieve that goal. This article takes the copyright law in Jordan as a case study and shows how, in practical terms, a pro-development-oriented approach could be implemented in the copyright laws of developing countries. It provides specific recommendations for developing countries to ensure that their IP laws are aligned with and serve their social and economic development objectives.

Intellectual property and development : theory and practice

Since the 1960s, many developing countries have introduced IP laws to help them in their social and economic development. Introducing these laws was considered as a civilised act and a precondition of developing countries‘ progress from being =under-developed‘ to becoming =developed‘. In 2004, Brazil and Argentina presented a comprehensive proposal on behalf of developing countries to establish the Development Agenda in the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). They put forward a view that IP laws in their current form are not helping those countries in their development, as is constantly being suggested by developed countries, and that there is a need to rethink the international IP system and the work of WIPO. The research undertaken examines the correlation between IP and social and economic development. It investigates how IP systems in developing countries could work to advance their development, especially in the context of the internet. The research considers the theory and practice of IP and development, and proposes a new IP framework which developing countries could employ to further their social and economic development.