Visible IP Positioning in Practice

How can a potential client recognise the right IP expertise before experiencing the advice? Digital MedTech offers a revealing case. Medical knowledge, software and data processing meet in products whose technical contribution can be difficult to explain. A firm communicating in this field needs to help readers recognise the connection between their development challenges and the expertise available to address them.

This first article in Visible IP – Positioning in Practice examines Mewburn Ellis’s public communication around digital MedTech systems. It explores how a broad theme becomes more specific through practical content and identifiable experts, and what IP professionals can apply to their own positioning.

The accompanying episode of IP Management Voice is now available as part of the Personal Growth series. In the episode, we discuss how Mewburn Ellis makes its digital MedTech expertise visible to potential clients and close with a practical exercise to help you sharpen your own positioning as an IP expert.
👉 Listen to “How Mewburn Ellis makes its Digital MedTech Expertise Visible” on IP Management Voice

Start with the moment when expertise becomes relevant

Imagine a digital MedTech company preparing to demonstrate its latest medical imaging software. The development team has improved the processing method. The founders are discussing growth with investors. Before the demonstration, somebody asks: what, exactly, can we protect?

This illustrative situation brings together several questions. What is technically distinctive? How does the software contribute to the medical function? Which development could remain valuable as the product evolves? The company needs somebody who can understand the connections and investigate the contribution behind the implementation.

That creates a positioning challenge for the adviser. Potential clients need a basis for assessing fit before a first meeting. Public communication can provide that basis by showing which problems an expert recognises and how they approach them. For personal positioning, begin with the situation in which your expertise becomes useful. A reader should be able to connect what you publish with a question they might actually face.

Give the broad theme a recognisable meaning

Mewburn Ellis offers several public entry points into this field. Its Medical Technology page connects engineering expertise with devices, imaging and software. Its Bioinformatics and Digital Health page addresses the intersection of life sciences and computation. Its AI MedTech page introduces related applications and specialists.

Our reading is that these materials make a translation capability visible: understanding innovation across technical disciplines and connecting that understanding with protection decisions. Digital MedTech systems is the editorial scope of this analysis, rather than an official practice name attributed to the firm.

A theme gains positioning value when it helps people identify the difficulties an adviser is equipped to address. An R&D director may recognise a need for technical engagement. A founder may see a question about protection priorities. An in-house IP professional may identify specialist knowledge relevant to a computational invention.

The IPBA Plattform’s earlier analysis, When MedTech Becomes a Digital Health System, compares how Mewburn Ellis and HGF frame the field. It provides further context for the role of thematic interpretation in expert positioning.

Give each piece of content a useful job

Three kinds of material are particularly useful for understanding the communication: an overview, a practical article and an expert conversation. The Bioinformatics and Digital Health overview refers to development conditions such as open-source software, regulated assets and partnerships. It also connects different forms of protection with commercial goals. This gives readers opportunities to recognise features of their own working environment.

A practical article performs another task. Alex Burns’s January 2021 contribution, How to patent your digital health apps – 5 key considerations, organises the subject around questions about a new feature, technical effect, claims and supporting evidence. Viewed as a communication example, its structure helps readers prepare for a more informed discussion.

The third example is the CEIPI IP Business Talk with Camille Terfve. The report on the IPBA Plattform, IP Strategies for Digital MedTech with Camille Terfve, explores invention identification, commercial priorities and evolving software technologies. Questions about what a team was trying to achieve, what proved difficult and how it overcame that difficulty make an advisory approach tangible.

These materials can support one another. The overview helps somebody locate their problem. The article helps them formulate questions. The conversation helps them imagine engaging with an expert. This is an interpretation of their public communication function, without assuming that they were designed as a single campaign. For your own content, assign each contribution a purpose. Ask what the reader will be better able to understand, prepare or discuss after engaging with it.

Connect the subject with identifiable people

A firm’s capability eventually needs to become meaningful at the level of a person. Somebody exploring a technical subject will want to know whom they could approach with a particular question.

Camille Terfve’s public profile connects computational biology and bioinformatics with digital health and AI in life sciences. A separate feature about her professional background explains the relationship between mathematics, biology and patent practice.

The positioning value lies in that relationship. A biography can help a reader understand why a person works at a technical intersection and what perspective they bring to it. The AI MedTech material also presents distinct specialisms, including Susannah Dragosavac’s work around surgical image processing and Alex Burns’s mathematically focused AI expertise. This offers a useful model for experts within larger firms. Individual profiles can contribute different perspectives to a shared theme. The question is which situations colleagues and potential clients should associate with each person.

The IPBA Plattform’s Visible IP discussions develop this further through What Strong Positioning Looks Like for IP Experts. The recurring issue is how expertise becomes identifiable through a coherent public profile.

Help interest develop into a useful conversation

Consider a possible client journey. An R&D director discovers a practical article, recognises a question relevant to their team and explores related material. A thematic page provides context. A profile identifies a specialist. A public conversation offers an impression of how that person engages with technical problems. This is an illustrative journey. Real visitors may arrive through recommendations, events or shared content, and encounter the material in different orders. Each contribution therefore needs to make sense independently while supporting a coherent overall impression.

The questions change along the way. Is this relevant to my situation? Is there sufficient depth? Who could help? What would be useful to discuss?

One development opportunity is to make that final question more concrete. Decision-based entry points could help visitors preparing a disclosure, considering a collaboration or reviewing a changing product’s protection priorities. Guidance on what to bring to an initial discussion could also make the next interaction easier to imagine. These are recommendations arising from the analysis.

For further examples of how different touchpoints can work together, explore What Client Journeys Can Look Like for IP Experts on the IPBA Plattform.

Recognise the mechanism behind the position

The mechanism visible in this case connects technical specificity with practical questions and identifiable experts. A topic gives people an entry point. An explanation gives them substance to assess. A person gives them somebody to approach.

Our interpretation is that this combination helps make complex expertise more legible. Evaluating commercial results would require further evidence, including the relevance of enquiries and the development of client relationships. The public material supports an analysis of positioning rather than a measurement of mandates or revenue.

For your own practice, assess whether your contributions reinforce a recognisable connection. The same expertise can appear in different formats and contexts while remaining associated with a consistent set of questions.

Two earlier Personal Growth episodes offer complementary perspectives: IP Management Voice 94 on LinkedIn profiles and positioning, and IP Management Voice 97 on sustained visibility and trust.

Apply the case to your own positioning

Start by completing this sentence: “When a particular kind of organisation faces a particular decision, I help it address a particular uncertainty.”

Then review three of your public contributions. Can the right reader recognise their situation? What do they learn about your approach? Can they understand why a conversation with you would be worthwhile?

If the connection is weak, revise one piece first. Give it a clearer client situation, explain a useful question and connect it with your professional role. A focused collection of relevant contributions can begin to make that role recognisable, even with limited resources.

For continued support, the Independent by Design IP Expert Support programme brings together live sessions addressing positioning, visibility and business development. The Independent by Design newsletter explores these questions through recurring professional situations. Further resources are available in the Resource Hub for IP Experts.

The forthcoming Visible IP – Positioning in Practice episode of IP Management Voice will develop this case as a conversation within the Personal Growth series. Its central question is also the one to take into your own practice: when somebody encounters your expertise in public, can they understand the situation in which they should think of you?