Nigel Clarke

European Patent Office, Austria

Dr Nigel Clarke has a First Class honours degree in physical chemistry and a PhD in neutron scattering. After university he moved into metallurgy and materials science working in nuclear and defence R&D as a research scientist and subsequently as project manager. He is a Chartered Chemist, Chartered Physicist, a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and of the Institute of Physics and is registered as a European Physicist. In the IP world he started as an Examiner at the EPO in The Hague, transferred into IT project management, and later settled into patent information at the EPO in Vienna. He has organised many international patent information events, and managed projects supporting patent information networks in Europe. Currently he is involved in market research, and the promotion of the EPO's internet services such as esp@cenet. He has been heavily involved in the development and delivery of EPO training courses especially for Central European countries and non-member states especially in the Far East. He maintains a strong personal interest in raising awareness of IPR among scientists and engineers in universities and SMEs.