Dr. Mike Barlow OBE
Founder and owner of Fairoaks IP
Mike Barlow has an MA and D.Phil from Pembroke College Oxford in Chemistry and has been a qualified UK and European Patent Attorney since 1987.
From 1995 to the end of 2008, he was Head of BP International's Global Patents and Technology Law group in which role he led BP's patenting activity and the IP due diligence and negotiations around all of its significant commercial transactions in the period including the mergers or acquisitions of Amoco, Arco, Burmah Castrol and Veba Oil and the divestiture of BPs $8bn commodity petrochemicals business to Ineos. He has also led major patent litigation for BP in the US, UK and Europe and has worked on many licensing transactions for the company and its various subsidiaries.
Mike is a past President of the IP Federation (the UK's principal Industry IP body) and is currently a Vice President and Chair of its Patents Committee. He is a former Chair of the European Chemical Industry's IP Task Force and a former Council member of The Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys in the UK. Mike was a co-author of the 2003 Royal Society study on the effect of IP on science and continues to advise the UK government on IP policy both nationally and internationally.
Mike has been involved in IP due diligence and technology transfer for over twenty years and currently chairs the UK Intellectual Property Office's (IPO) Business to Business committee tasked to provide IP business support to small high technology companies. He is a co-author of the UK IPO's book 'What Licensing can do for your Business' published in 2008 and led the development of its on-line IP strategy and licensing tool which was launched at the end of 2009. He is also a co-author of the IPO's 2009 booklet on valuing intellectual property and a forthcoming book entitled 'Choosing the Right IP Adviser'.
In 2007 Mike led the cross-industry team which created the IP business and licensing model which underpins the Energy Technology Institute (ETI) a £1bn partnership between the UK Government and a consortium of six of Europe's largest energy and engineering companies. He has lectured frequently on creating and extracting value from the intellectual assets associated with new technologies.
Since retiring from BP Mike has run his own IP consultancy firm Fairoaks IP advising small high-tech companies on how to exploit their IP. He remains a consultant to various BP businesses in the area of renewable energy and is currently a Board member of the Intellectual Property Institute in London. Mike was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 New Year's Honours list for his services to IP and Innovation in the United Kingdom. He is currently listed by Intellectual Asset Magazine as one of the world's top 250 IP strategists.