Dawn of Creation proved perfect tonic to cut IP specialist’s stress
Climbing Kilimanjaro inspired patent attorney who is battling Parkinson’s to set up his own firm
LIKE the best decisions in life, it was made at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.
Bryn Williams, patent attorney and founder of Hillington-based Creation IP, decided to set up his own practice after scaling the biggest mountain in Africa.
While conquering a near 6,000metre summit is likely to give perspective to the best of us, it had particular resonance for Mr Williams. By the time he made the gruelling climb in 2012, he had been living with Parkinson’s for five years, having been diagnosed with the neurological condition at just 36.
Reading through his blog from the time, the diagnosis was as devastating as one might imagine. With a wife, two young children and a good career, the life which had been mapped out before him took a sudden change of direction.
Yet, despite the dark times that inevitably followed, it paved the way for some genuinely lifeaffirming experiences. Driven by support from family and friends, Mr Williams responded to the shock by throwing himself into charity work, fulfilling a series of ambitions along the way.
By the time he had scaled Kilimanjaro, Mr Williams and the army of followers who had signed up to his Wobbly Williams Foundation had raised hundreds of thousands of pounds to fund research into neurological conditions. Marathons and 10ks were run, mountains were climbed, and all manner of quirky fund-raising events, including the Wobbly Williams ball, were held.
Mr Williamson achieved all this while holding down his job as a patent attorney in the Glasgow office of Marks & Clerk. However, by 2012 something had to give.
Mr Williams is quick to emphasise that Marks & Clerk had offered “fantastic” support in the period since his diagnosis, allowing him to reduce his hours to fit in the increasing demands of the charity work. Eventually, though, the balancing act became too difficult.
“In 2012, I went up Kilimanjaro at the very start of the year, [and] I expected the Parkinson’s to get worse because of the altitude and lots of other stuff,” Mr Williams said. “And it kind of got better. I realised it was because all the stress of work had left me. So I came down that mountain and decided to set up on my own.
“The plan was to set up Creation and spend a day or two doing patent attorney work, and the rest doing the charity work.”
Mr Williams found there were immediate benefits to running his own practice. Freed from the constraints of working for a big firm, he found he started to enjoy working as a patent attorney again. He also no longer experienced that “Sunday evening feeling”.
Mr Williams said he set out to build the sort of company where people are “happy to go to their work”, which began in earnest with the recruitment of European trademark attorney Catriona Good in May 2013. Ms Good was followed by office manager Karen McCartney in August that year.
“We started to build a firm where the motto is to make money and have fun, and that’s what we try and do,” he said. “It has grown to nine people now.”
The firm now has four attorney and five administrative staff, with plans to take on three to five further attorneys, depending on the breadth of subjects it decides to cover. The long-term objective is to grow to between 16 and 18 staff in total.
“That gives everybody sufficient cover to go away on holiday and not think about work,” Mr Williams noted. “We change everybody’s passwords when they go on holiday, so they can’t log in to their email. We are very big on that sort of thing.”
Clients of Creation include the Scottish company behind the Trtl, now the best-selling travel pillow on Amazon, and Spex, the offshore technology company based in Aberdeen.
Asked to define how Creation differs from others, Mr Williams replied that the firm tries to put itself in the client’s shoes. He eschews giving the “safe advice” which many IP firms offer but isn’t always what clients need.
Mr Williams said: “We also cover the whole life cycle of an idea. We get involved with our clients right at the start of our ideas, and help form them ideas.
“If you get the right intellectual property, then your company flies.”
With business growing so rapidly – Creation recently moved into bigger offices at the Hillington Innovation Park – it is no surprise to hear that Mr Williams is no longer as hands-on at his charity.
But it took the intervention of his friends to convince him to slow down.
He recalls being told by a friend at a beer festival in Prague that the charity had become too big for him to run. The advice did not go down well, initially it least. “I was raging!” Mr Williams said. “I got up, went for a walk, came back and said, tell me more. He had been the nominated person of all my pals to tell me that I had to give up the charity work. So I did.”
The decision paid off. Mr Williams hired Sharon Kane, the former fundraising manager at Down’s Syndrome Scotland, who has raised more than £1 million in her first year. Mr Williams and his band of willing volunteers had raised a hugely commendable £950,000 in seven years.
Mr Williams remains involved in the charity, which now goes under the Funding Neuro name, as the chairman of the board of trustees. He also remains a figurehead for its fundraising events, including an “Evening of Elegance” in Aberdeen, which last year featured an appearance by Emeli Sande.
“Funding Neuro is much more serious affair,” he said. “The trial we are funding at the minute, which is going to start fairly soon, is for kids with brain tumours.”
The trial is based on a pioneering method of delivering drugs directly into the brain, which has been developed at the University of Bristol. Mr Williams himself is participating in a similar trial to treat Parkinson’s, which involves him travelling to Bristol once every four weeks for treatment. The technique, which can be used to deliver proteins for Parkinson’s sufferers or chemotherapy for brain tumours, will not cure Mr Williams’ condition. But it has halted its progress quite dramatically. “I think I’m back where I was two or three years ago, when the trial started,” he said. “I should have deteriorated at a rate. Everybody who sees me who hasn’t seen me for a year or two goes ‘whoa’. I’m now nine years in.”
Mr Williams said he is unable to comment in too much detail about the trial because talks are taking place with a major pharmaceutical firm over the commercialisation of the delivery system and the drugs used.
Should the deal not come off, Mr Williams said one option for Funding Neuro would be to fund the extension of the trial for a further year. His own, one-year trial is due to come to a close at the end of the year. And while there are many different programmes researching ways to alleviate and cure Parkinson’s, Mr Williams has “put all my eggs in this basket” with this trial.
“What I want to do is answer the question, “does GDNF [glial cell-derived neurtrophic factor] work for Parkinson’s disease?” he said.
“I don’t want it to be left hanging in the air. It’s frightening how big a deal this could be for so many people.”