Today we visited Valea which is an Intellectual Property firm. We met with Andrew Hammond who is a European Patent Attorney, the CEO and a founder of Valea. Their mission is “to be recognized as a European market leader in intellectual property consulting and as the partner of choice for clients”. Valea focuses on helping their clients strength their competitive advantage and prevents competitors from taking advantage of them.
Valea works with a variety of clients that are well known all over the world, with attorneys that specialize in a variety of industries. They currently have 75 employees and of these, 55 of them are attorneys. I was very impressed with their company structure. Their structure is organized for maximum client satisfaction and there are multiple teams in the company to ensure that every customer has the most well informed team helping them.
Adam talked about the importance of working on a team in the workforce and the importance of “branding”. Valea works to ensure that their customers’ intangible assets are protected. This was interesting to me because i’ve spent the last few years learning about accounting methods for intangibles but have never known much about what goes behind it.
After Adam talked to us for a bit he had one of the attorney’s, Victor talk to the group about trademarks and their importance for brand recognition. We discussed the value that it can add to a company and the danger it can also bring if a brand becomes a generic term. The example we spoke on was “Kleenex”, because the word is so commonly used, the company runs the risk of losing its trademark because it’s what all tissues are being called. It’s weird to think that while you may think a company wants to be a household name, it could lose value.
After victor and Adams presentation we headed to lunch. We met at a cafeteria in Lilla Bommen building that is commonly referred as “the lipstick” building. We enjoyed a nice lunch with Adam and Victor and discussed what law school is like in Sweden.
After our lunch we had about an hour and a half to explore nordstan before meeting up for our next visit. Nordstan is Gothenburg’s most popular shopping center. They have a variety of stores and restaurants, both stores that can be found in the US and stores that seem to only be local stores. Peyton and I stopped at Espresso House (which seems to be the equivalent of their Starbucks) for a quick recharge.
After meeting up again as a group we all headed to Xylem. Xylem is a water solution company and provides water maintenance products for both residential and commercial buildings. We first watched a video about the scary reality regarding water.
After this video Christian talked about how they have become the leading global water technology producer. Xylem believes that water is the challenge that will define the 21st century. They are trying to develop innovative ways for everyone to have access to clean water. It was scary and inspiring all at once.
3 Takeaways
- Kleenex could use their trademark because we call all tissues Kleenex
- Law school in Sweden requires you to take a 6 hour test
- We need to stop taking advantage of clean water
Leslye's Travels 