Blueprints for Innovation: Advancing Kentucky’s IP-Driven Future

On April 23, 2025, more than 50 innovators, legal experts, entrepreneurs, and policymakers gathered at the University of Kentucky’s Gatton Student Center for Blueprints for Innovation: Intellectual Property in the Bluegrass State. Co-hosted by the Kentucky Intellectual Property Alliance (KYIPA), UK Innovate, and the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP), the event was a powerful convergence of minds exploring how intellectual property (IP) can fuel Kentucky’s innovation economy.

Federal Voices, Local Impact

The event kicked off with a compelling fireside chat featuring U.S. Congressman Thomas Massie and former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Andrei Iancu. Drawing on his own experience as an MIT-trained inventor, Congressman Massie stressed the importance of patent protection in launching and scaling new technologies is for Kentucky saying, "We've got the smartest minds in Kentucky here, and they are working on really hard problems. Their thesis shouldn't go on a shelf and collect dust; it can be used to enhance everybody's life. We need more people that understand how important this is to our state."

Iancu echoed this sentiment, adding that IP "drives innovation, which in turn drives the economy and job growth...patents are really to incentivize the inventors to put in their time and effort into creating these new inventions and the investors to bring their capital their dollars to back these inventions up."

Frank Cullen, Executive Director of C4IP, framed IP as a tool for economic growth and national competitiveness and called on Kentucky to embrace policies that support inventors and entrepreneurs statewide. "These issues are local they're just not about inside the beltway policy discussions," Cullen said.

“We've got the smartest minds in Kentucky here. [Their ideas] can be used to enhance everybody's life. We need more people that understand how important this is to our state." U.S. Congressman Thomas

Building a Stronger IP Ecosystem

A dynamic panel discussion moderated by Ian McClure, UK’s VP for Research and Innovation, spotlighted strategies for strengthening Kentucky’s innovation pipeline. Panelists included:

• Mandy Decker (Stites & Harbison, KYIPA)

• Jeffery Langer (Zoeller Company)

• Terry Samuel (Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation)

• Raechele Smalls (Launch Blue Ventures)

• Prof. Michael Murray (UK Rosenberg College of Law)

Panelists explored how startups, universities and corporations can better protect and leverage IP, including as a tool for talent attracting. Smalls elaborated, saying, "a world without IP law or IP protection means no more high caliber talent for our region, for our state, but also for us to be globally competitive."

The discussion also covered IP education, the intersection bewteen IP and AI, and looked to the future of IP and regional innovation, particularly when it comes to innovators and entrepreneurs. "Take the entrepreneur that mortgages his house or leaves a job and gives up insurance, may or may not have family that they have to worry about," Samuel explained. "They put everything they have into a business. If they think that what they invent can easily get stolen, they're not gonna do it."

"A world without IP law or IP protection means no more high caliber talent for our region, for our state, but also for us to be globally competitive." Raechele Smalls Launch Blue Ventures

The event closed with an engaging Q&A session and a networking reception, where attendees sparked new collaborations and shared strategies for turning ideas into impactful innovations.

This conversation marks a significant step toward building an inclusive, IP-savvy innovation ecosystem in Kentucky.