The Surveyors’ Trust has instituted an annual award for projects or activities that are of significant impact to the recognition of the surveying profession in the following categories:

1. The creation, identification, and definition of new intellectual property
2. The management of existing intellectual property
3. The commercialisation of intellectual property
4. The protection of intellectual property
5. The raising of awareness of surveying and spatial intellectual property

The annual award for the project or activity with the most impact is a cash prize of $50,000. If no submissions reach the level of impact sought by the judges, up to two encouragement awards of $5,000 may be awarded in any year.

Results in 2020

Five submissions were made for the 2020 Intellectual Property Award. In the opinion of the judges none were demonstrated to be sufficiently impactful to earn the major prize.

Two submissions were awarded an encouragement award:

Ian Mathieson — Tenure Solutions

This company is developing a tenure system which is much wider than the commonly recognised land registry to take into account formal cadastral systems and other tenures based on use, custom, etc. The development seems well advanced but the application of intellectual property principles is in its early development.

It does involve measurement of the tenure and proposes the involvement of surveyors to significant extent. There is opportunity for the incorporation of surveyor’s intellectual property to be advanced with future developments of the system.

Majid Doost — Point Share Plus Pty Ltd

Point Share Plus (PSP) is an online point cloud platform for storing, viewing, sharing and analysing any type of point cloud data-sets and 3D models. It’s objective is to become a leading provider of online viewing of point cloud data across many different industries.

Development appears to be advanced and has potential to be an important tool for the surveying industry. The application does not address the issue of intellectual property ownership of the point cloud data and how that is to be handled in terms of protection, commercialisation, etc. but there is scope to complete the development to include that area for the benefit of the business and the surveying industry.

The Intellectual Property Award 2021

The Surveyors' Trust will again be running its annual award for projects or activities that are of significant impact to the recognition of the surveying profession. Entries will open in approximately February 2021 with details to follow.