Today we went to Valea Technology and Law and were able to hear about everything that they do. We met with Andrew Hammond who is a European Patent Attorney and the CEO of the company. At Valea there is about 75 employees and they all love Valea and everything is stands for. Andrew mentioned while he was presenting how they do so well and go about and beyond their competitors and his answer was, “We use competencies from all to create synergy.” Their motivation at Valea is “thrive to drive,” which really spoke to me because you could tell that they work so hard at their jobs to make the company do as well as they possibly can. Valea’s turnover is about $20 million and they have no external owners, they are only owned by staff.During Andrew’s presentation he talked about patents. Patents only last 20 years but you can continually add things to the patent to make is last longer. A patent is a contract between the state and inventor that can stop others form using that patent but it does not give you the right to commercialize your product. Patents force competitors to come up with alternative solutions that do not infringe the patent, which continues the world to keep moving forward. We also had another presenter named Victor who talked to us about trademarks and industrial design rights. Trademarks last forever but need to be renews every 10 years. Industrial design rights protect the visual design of objects and last for 15 to 25 years.
At the end of their presentation, our professor asked what helpful information they would like to give to the graduates. Andrew said have fun and make sure you are working with people that you want to be working with and Victor said do not be afraid to pivot sometimes, but you also have to land in the end.After Valea we traveled to Xylem and learned how they are providing the world with clean water each and every day. Their slogan is, “Let’s solve problems. Everyone, everywhere, everyday.”The demand for water will increase 5 times by 2050 and the amount of drinkable water on Earth stays the same; we have the same water that the dinosaurs drank. In 2011, Xylem was bought by ITT so there are now three branches, Xylem, ITT Corporation, and ITT Exelis. Xylem helps with dewatering, water treatment, water and wastewater transport, applied water systems, and many more areas. They travel to places like India that do not have clean water to drink and they put in water towers and pumps. The company has revenues of $4 billion and their name means “plant tissue” in Greek.The company has done some remarkable things such as, providing the water transport for the memorial pool at the new World Trade Center and they have also provided the submersible pumps to protect the Pyramids. A fun thing about Xylem is that they have on-site product testing, which sets them apart from their competitors because their customers do not have on-site testing so they have to go to a separate testing facility. Every single pump is also tested before leaving the plant so you know that you are getting top quality products.
Daily Reflections:
– The New Orleans has the biggest water pump system Xylem has ever created
– Xylem has pumps in the tallest building in the world
– Law in Sweden is different than in the U.S. in that if you practice law in Sweden, then you can practice in any of the Scandinavian countries
Off to Sweden We Go 