For this week’s Community Spotlight feature, we are in Southwest France, to meet with Muriel Bourgeois-Tassanary, founder and CEO of MT consulting.
Muriel has worked in IP for nearly 3 decades, in many different aspects of IP, with a focus on patent information, intelligence and analytics. She is a former President of CEPIUG (Confederation of European Patent Information User Group), and Vice-President of CFIB (French speaking Patent Information Group), she plays an active role in Patent Information Education before QPIP, the French Patent Office, and Universities.
RH - After a career of which was spent mostly with very large companies like Nestle and Technicolor, what made you start MT-Consulting?
MT – My principal driver was my desire to share the knowledge of IP – and the many different aspects of IP that I have been involved with and have acquired during my career specifically with a section of the innovative community that does not really understand IP, nor is well-served by the large service providers. So, I am talking about SME’s, sole proprietors, inventors, start-ups, etc.
RH – We think that is an admirable goal, how’s it going so far?
MT – Pretty well I would say. I teach university courses, I am involved with a local BNI group (Business Network International) - a professional network of entrepreneurs who are sharing referrals founded in US in 1985, and began to act as an independent consultant for INPI (French Patent Office) IP Master Classes.
I am trying to deliver content and training that is different from that which, e.g. large search companies or the patent offices would provide. I give content that reflects the reality of a start-up or SME which is often time and resource poor. It is about providing pragmatic, useful advice with results like operational pictures that can be easily understood by those without a massive background in, or knowledge of IP.
RH -I am sure you have seen some changes in the tools you have used over the years, what has been the impact of this?
MT – Ha – that’s an understatement. When I started, we loaded CD-ROMs with the latest patent information on local pc’s! We have moved from classical Boolean searching to semantic searching, now including AI and Deep Learning. This has mean that for us professionals in the industry we have had to adapt and employ a different mindset to that which we had previously. We now need to report to many different people in different roles, with different areas of interest and different knowledge of IP. I liken it to be a Swiss army knife – we have to pull out one facet, one tool to meet one particular need, then another different tool to meet another need. It’s about being adaptable. Having said that, I think that these are very interesting times with many very useful tools more accessible to users. I try to equip them to be able to make the most of these tools, to navigate IP landscapes to further their aims.