About Konnexus
Konnexus is an Ålesund based consultancy company, advising on Intellectual Property rights and commercial contract management. Konnexus has been founded Emma Blake, a dual qualified English solicitor and Norwegian Advokat, with almost 10 years’ industry experience. Konnexus focusses on combining legal knowledge and industry experience to provide practical advice in a commercial context. Konnexus advises on the whole lifecycle of Intellectual Property rights from creation and protection to management and commercial exploitation - advising not only on the technical law but also on processes for managing intellectual property rights. The same approach is applied to commercial contracting – with advice across the whole contract lifecycle from bid phase and negotiation through to performance and beyond, with advice on processes and strategies for managing commercial risk.
Our advice is tailored to your business and is shaped by the external and internal factors which effect your Intellectual Property and contracting strategies. Konnexus combines technical advice with the 'what' and 'how'. "What does this mean for my business?", "How do I manage this?" and "What steps do I need to take?”
How Konnexus Works
Many small and medium sized business struggle to acess to the professional advice they need. Larger and more established businesses have the resources to hire their own internal advisors or can afford external advisers on a traditional hourly basis. Smaller businesses are often only able to seek professional advice when absolutely necessary, in some cases this means when an issue is very urgent or has escalated. Konnexus provides a more flexible consultancy based service, allowing businesses to hire an advisor on a short term assignment basis to support contract negotiations and projects, to develop business processes and provide training. This provides more flexible and cost effective services allowing advice to be obtained at an earlier stage. Working with your business in this way, Konnexus can gain a better understanding of the external and internal factors effecting your business so that it is able to provide bespoke and more rounded commercial advice.
Collaboration
The level of innovation activity in the Sunnmøre region is truly inspiring. The region is not only recognised as one of the most innovative clusters in the maritime industry, but it aslo home to some of the most iconic and innovative furniture designers, clothes manufacturers and manufactuterers of childrens equipment.
NTNU, one of the world's most recognised research universities has a campus here and Ålesund has been chosen as one of the UN's Smart Cities, a digitalizarion project designed to help map and improve the population's energy use. There are a number of established partnerships and collaborations between the public sector, academic research centres and private industry to encourage collaboration, stimulate innovation and help and share the latest digital competance and knowledge. Encouraged and suported by organisations such as Innovasjon Norge and ÅKP, innovative investors and co-working solutions, it is also a centre of development for new sustainable products and services.
Konnexus has been inspired by this innovative and collaborative environment. The name ‘Konnexus’ is inspired by the concept of collaboration, 'connecting us'. Konnexus is currently based in the Blue Innovation Arena at NMK in the heart of this environment. Konnexus also uses a collaborative approach, working with legal experts, patent attorneys and data protection experts whre needed to provide a fully rounded service.
About Emma
I was previously a private practice lawyer at a large international law firm in the UK, specialising in IP and commercial contract law. I moved here in 2011 to take up a role as Commercial Manager in Rolls-Royce's Marine business with the aim of being here for 12 -18 months. Like most international people who come to work in the Sunnmøre region, I got absolutely drawn in by the beauty of the place, its culture and the people. One partner, two little people and one never ending house project later and I am still here. I still wake up every day and amazed at the beauty of the place - even in the sideways rain!
The role of a Commercial Manager involves being a link between sales teams, legal, financial, insurance, and export control functions and business leaders, allowing you to see all the elements which play a contractual relationship. Not only did the role involve drafting, negotiating and advising on the interpretation of contracts but also advising on the resulting commercial risks and how to mitigate them. I had the opportunity to negotiate and advise on wide range of commercial agreements with suppliers, customers and collaboration partners across Europe, Asia and South America. I have also been involved in large scale product liability programmes, developing claims management processes, negotiating settlement agreements and developing customer communication strategies.
Intellectual Property has always been one of my passions and in 2015 I had the opportunity to move into the role of IP Manager. This gave me the opportunity to work across a portfolio of both traditional mechanical products and digital technology. I was able to shape and implement processes for managing Intellectual Property across the whole lifecycle of rights and advised on Intellectual Property issues in a range of commercial contracts from non-disclosure agreements, supplier agreements, employments contracts, collaboration agreements, sales agreements and licencing agreements. The most exciting aspect was developing tools to assist in the management of Intellectual Property Rights in relation to large funded and non-funded collaboration agreements.
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Egnethetsprøve for EØS Advokater UiO 2019
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Qualified Solicitor (England & Wales) 2007
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LLM Commerical Intellectual Property Nottingham Trent University
With the prospect of Brexit looming on the horizon and the impact on the recognition of qualifications, I started studying for the Egnethetsprøve for EØS advokater (whilst on maternity leave). I was pleased to pass in November 2019. Inspired by the environment of innovation and collaboration in the area, i decided to take the next and most scary step. Leaving a company I had worked in for almost a decade to set up on my own. I wanted to take the knowledge and experience I had developed to help and support smaller and medium sized businesses in the area. I'm looking forward to the challenge and working with some new and exciting projects!