Tom Hutchinson

Tom Hutchinson acts as a consultant for us in a variety of technical fields including materials, mechanical engineering and nanotechnology. Tom has always been interested in science and engineering and spent his formative years designing, building, repairing and "improving" anything from kayaks and boats to motorcycles and radio-controlled boats & aircraft. Having lived in Cyprus from the age of 8 to 18, Tom became a keen dinghy & offshore sailor, windsurfer and canoeist and spent most of his summers cruising and doing boat-related work around the Mediterranean. However, Tom always wanted to work in a "practical", engineering or science-related area and therefore decided to study Materials Engineering at university, mainly because his career aspiration at that time was to live on a beach and to design and build boats for a living!

Tom therefore decided to leave Cyprus to read Materials Engineering at the University of Liverpool, graduating in 1999 with a 1st Class Master's degree. Tom then accepted a position as a Research Assistant, again at the University of Liverpool, where he stayed until 2001 carrying out electron microscopy studies of self-assembled nanostructures and working on new ways to create complex 3D structures by melting metal powders with lasers. Having published several papers and part-completed a PhD, Tom decided to leave academia to pursue a career in Intellectual Property having been involved in a number of patent-related matters during his studies.

Tom then worked at two Liverpool-based firms, training on-the-job and attending the University of Manchester part-time where he obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Intellectual Property Law in 2003. Having passed his UK and European qualifying examinations, Tom qualified as a UK Patent Attorney in 2006 (becoming a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys and being entered on OHIM's list of professional representatives for Community Designs later that year) and as a European Patent Attorney in 2008.

Tom is based in his home town of Southport, where he lives with his wife and two young children. Outside work Tom is involved in high-profile charity and fundraising work through his membership of Southport Hesketh Round Table.