Cambridge, a small, historic city an hour north of London, is a fantastic place to be working in tech.

One of the many benefits of practising as a patent attorney in this great city is the opportunity it brings to work alongside adventurous, often early-stage companies with incredible prospects. Part of my role is to help companies, much of the time at a strategic level, to build value and encourage investment through constructing an intellectual property portfolio from the ground up.  A significant part of that value-building can take place before the business sells a single product. In the early stages in particular, so much of a business's value is dependent on the IP strategy.

Cambridge has a big concentration of start-ups and tech companies of all sizes - we have more than 4,500 high-tech firms, employing nearly 75,000 people. Global giants Amazon, Apple, ARM, Google, Microsoft and Samsung all have an R&D presence in Cambridge.  

But in my view it's not the companies, per se, that make the Cambridge tech scene so special.

It's the people.

Long may that continue.