One of the most exciting aspects of a patent attorney’s job is working with imaginative and ingenious inventors who come up with remarkable new inventions that we then work to protect with patents.

Sometimes patents are obtained for incremental improvements to products, building on the work of predecessors to bring further advantages and that extra edge in competitive markets. However, every so often an inventor will take a step back and look at a problem from a new angle, discarding previous prejudices as to how it should be approached. This can produce some of the best inventions, and these inventors are the most refreshing and exciting to work with.

The inspiration for inventions can come from many different sources. Many inventions (e.g. Velcro, the bullet train, fog harvesting) have been inspired by nature. Oxford Space Systems have taken inspiration from origami to develop significantly lighter components for small (e.g. “CubeSat”) satellites, that will enable constellations of such satellites to be launched to provide internet and other services.

It is this work that has seen Oxford Space Systems grow rapidly from their formation only a few years ago and win countless awards for their disruptive technology. Mike Lawton and your team – it is a pleasure to work with you!

“Because every kilogramme costs around £35,000 to launch, we soon learned how important it was that we make our systems as light and compact as they could be. This enables them to fit onto smaller rockets that are cheaper to launch.”

https://innovateuk.blog.gov.uk/2017/10/05/foldable-space-systems-taking-inspiration-from-the-japanese-art-of-origami/