Just a young business professional learning about law today, specifically patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Upon arrival at Valea Technology and Law, we were greeted by Andrew and Victor. Andrew is the CEO and founding partner of the law firm, and if you meet the guy you can clearly tell he loves what he does. Andrew has so much passion for what he does and loves to learn something new everyday. When I think of law, I think of bone dry courses in law school and sitting in a courtrooms all day. You just had to be there to understand.
This particular aspect of the trip is going to be short because we had to sign a confidentialty agreement before settling in. What I’ll talk a little about is the mere fact of how you can but can’t own something at the same time. I posed a question about Lacoste and their classic alligator logo. Lacoste is selling shirts now that raise awareness for endangered species by replacing the alligator with these animals on different shirts. Now Lacoste owns the rights to their logo, but since they put the endangered species in their logo’s likeness they own the rights to these shirts. This is just one of the few things I am able to talk about, so I’m sorry I cannot share anything super special here but I learned about water resources for the back half of the day so that’s cool.
As a sort of half time between Valea and Xylem we got spend 2-ish hours in the mall and I almost spent way too much money. We hung out in Nordstand, a huge mall by Central Station. I didn’t want to wander too far because I knew we had too meet at a certain time. I just walked around Zara, a fair sized department store in this mall district. I was looking for an over coat and possibly a pair of Birkenstocks, and good lord the deals were insane. I couldn’t pull the trigger on the purchases because I know I have spend money later on for gifts and on my free days, but it was all deadly. Everything is affordable and reasonably priced here, so I definitely recommend a visit over here if you’re looking for a nordic adventure.
Well we made it to Xylem and boy were we thirsty, I am completely serious too. This is a water company that maximizes, saves, and protects water’s uses and potential. They work to solve problems that don’t exist yet. We all looked at each other for second and then listened closer. This company wants to create a world that is conscious of what people are doing with water. This is a finite resource and the company is working to figure out how this can be turned into an infinite resource. They do a lot of great work with less developed countries and nations by providing clean and drinkable water. It a nice and informative way to polish off our day.
I am happy to get this one done at a reasonable time tonight, tomorrow and Sunday are free days for the group so it will be a more upbeat post. I promise to post a lot of pictures, so stay tuned!
Today’s Takeaway’s:
- You can own rights to a concept and its likeness
- The future will be water based
- Swedish mall deals are deadly
- The New Orleans has the biggest water pump system Xylem has ever created
- The Swedish are unimpressed with office views of the water
Matt's Sweden Blog 