HEAD OF FORMALITIES

This is no ordinary Head of Formalities role. We’re looking for a very special person to join and lead our passionate and brilliant formalities team.

We don’t do politics or egos, and we get up every day to do the best work of our lives, and to serve our clients to the best of our abilities. We have an unlimited holiday policy, free gorgeous lunches, a massage chair room, free on-site hair dressing, free language classes, and some of the best company parties you can imagine.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead our small, growing and brilliant formalities team
• Design, constantly refine, and manage operational processes and procedures to ensure absolute reliability and precision
• Work with our world-class development team to help define and refine our state of the art web-based systems
• Set up and maintain procedures, and manage the process of keeping the business up to date, and ahead of all relevant laws and regulation changes
• Manage the assessment, training and integration of third party providers (eg. agents, translators, etc) and conduct regular reviews, to ensure both we and they are happy
• Manage our growing formalities team, based at international offices, conducting physical filing at various IPOs

The Formalities

Currently we offer two services: 1) Single-Instruction European Patent Validation and 2) Patent Renewals.

EP Validation

We centralise the processing, allowing people to receive an accurate quote within minutes, add and remove countries to see live price changes, and place one instruction with us, rather than 30 or so instructions with various providers around Europe. We then handle the whole thing: take care of all translations, provide an instant download of all necessary POAs, place instructions with foreign associates, and manage the family processing through our state-of-the-art web portal.

We file more EP Validations than any other company in the world, have never dropped a case, and have reduced the costs by about a third, and the timescales to about two weeks - instead of in some cases 6 - 12 months. Our service is transformational for the IP formalities industry, and we are extremely proud of it.

71(3) Claims Translations

As a complement to our validation service, we make it incredibly simple and fast to order 71(3) (Notice of Intention To Grant) claims translations.

Renewals

This service is currently in Beta, and only available to a select number of clients. It will be launched this summer, and is expected to transform the renewals industry in the same way our EP Validation service transformed that. This is expected to generate incredible demand, which will in turn add pressure to our formalities team, and to the person filling this vital role.

Other Services

Our strategy is to stick 100% to formalities, and never venture into fee-earning elements of IP. Our ultimate goal is to partner with the IP Industry, rather than compete within it, and so to provide a full suite of transformational IP Formalities services to support the unsung heroes of the IP world - the Formalities teams. So future services include Address Changes, Rights Assignments, License Registration, Status Checking, Generic POA Handling, etc.

Miscellaneous

• International travel is likely, and may from time to time be regular (to visit agents, our foreign offices, etc)

Requirements

• Driving license essential
• Brilliant mind for designing and spotting weaknesses in processes and procedures. This will be tested intensely as part of the selection process
• The ability to shed accepted wisdom ( "the way things are done" ) and re-examine everything with a fresh mind, in order to improve the industry, and the lives of formalities people
• Manage the assessment, training and integration of third party providers (eg. agents, translators, etc) and conduct regular reviews, to ensure both we and they are happy
• A sincere care for people. For doing the best work of one's life, and for absolute excellence

Advantageous (not required) Experience

• EP Validation handling (through agents) / filing (direct with IPOs)
• Renewals handling / filing
• Intensive IP Formalities handling / filing
• International IP formalities laws / regulations monitoring
• System / Process / Procedure design
• Any IP-popular foreign languages

Make no mistake, joining the IP Centrum team will be different to any other job in the IP Industry. We rethink EVERYTHING. This is one of the reasons we're successful, and why we enjoy the delight of our clients, and the respect and friendship of our global network of agents and translators. Our people are special, and we care about each other, and about doing some extraordinary together.

There is no place for arrogance, ego, politics, or any of the other ugly, boring and pointless corporatisms most people have had the misfortune to come to accept as the norm. We just want to provide the best possible service to our clients, and to have a great time doing it.

We work hard to ask all of the questions that have been considered to have been answered for many years. We challenge everything - can it be done better? Does it have to be done that way? Yes, but WHY has it always been done like that? - and this constant process has helped us to redefine many industry standards, and dramatically improve the working day of our clients, often in ways that now seem obvious.

We do not believe it's enough to "have a paper chain to prove we did our bit". We just believe we need to make sure nothing goes wrong - no matter who is in charge of that. That's really hard. It opens up worm-hole after worm-hole of additional checks and double checks that are required. "We've received the filing proof from our agent". Have we? Do we actually know that Chinese document really does constitute proof that the renewal has been paid and accepted by the IPO? Where do we / our client stand legally if the IPO has made a mistake? We have to ask and answer all of these questions, and this role is right at the sharp end of this challenge. So it is essential that you have the kind of enquiring and pedantic mind, that allows you to consider these factors when others would have been satisfied with the fact we're insured if something goes wrong!

It's tough to make hundreds of thousands of filings without a single drop. But it can be done. We've done it. With a very small team.

We now need to grow this team, and to launch new services, to roll out new offices around the world, with new teams. It's an extremely exciting time.

This is not a normal Formalities Manager role.

Overview

This is an extremely exciting role for the right person. It is going to be hard work, but hugely rewarding, and with unlimited future prospects for the right person.

We take great care of our people with healthcare for your immediate family, free, organic, delicious, fresh, chef-cooked lunches every day, unlimited annual holiday, free on-site hair dressing, free on-site language lessons, massage chair room, latest modern technology and designer furniture, as well as all the standard stuff like company pension and life insurance.

You'll need to be the kind of person that understands management isn't about commanding people to do the work so you don't have to, it's about respecting and supporting your team, and giving them tools and support and environment to use their talents and brilliance to achieve the best and most satisfying work possible, while having a great time.

If you're built the right way, this is an opportunity to do something truly special with your life's work. To join a team of people who absolutely love what they do, and what we're all doing together. It's a very special place and a very special team.

IP Centrum will be the most recognised, loved and respected name in IP Formalities within the next few years. We need more wonderful people to join our growing team, to help us get there, and the share the experience with us.