Richard Nugent has a strong background in negotiation. After university he worked in the financial services sector in the late 1980s, and in the voluntary sector in the 1990s. After his law degree in the late 1990s he worked as in-house counsel, negotiating the contracts with sub-contractors involved in the building of Belfast City Airport. He later worked in the legal teams of Canon, Orange, and SAS Software. With a strong interest in new technologies and commercialising innovations, in 2007 Richard moved to Rothamsted Research (a top agritech research centre), working as an IP Manager and a Legal Contracts Manager, and subsequently as a Contracts Manager within the Research & Enterprise team at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). Richard also works in his own consulting firm, Totalinfo Ltd. (as a Commercial Agent/Representative, Import/Export Broker, and IP & Contracts consultant, with a focus on bringing technology to the world), In his various roles, especially since 2007, Richard has worked with hundreds of innovators across all stages of the innovation process, and is very familiar with the challenges faced taking a technology from invention to commercialisation.

Since joining Mathys & Squire Consulting in 2018 Richard’s work has included numerous intangible asset audits (both private and grant funded by the UK Intellectual Property Office), IP brokerage, patent landscapes, competitive intelligence, IP strategy, portfolio management and IP training, IP policy as well as contracts consulting. Richard’s focus is helping innovative companies, Universities and governmental organisations as they create and execute their intellectual assets strategy. He regularly writes technology assessment and technology commercialisation reports for clients, addressing all technical domains. In 2020, as well as co-leading the PraxisAuril Research Contracts course, he contributed to the bestselling “Growing with Blockchain” book, writing the chapter on Blockchain and IP. Richard speaks and trains regularly about both IP and Contracts, training in person in the U.K., China, Brazil, Germany, Ireland, Singapore, South Africa and online in Turkey. Richard speaks French and Brazilian Portuguese. Richard previously worked on a project for the national IP office of Brazil, INPI. In 2024 he delivered a project on AI, Healthcare & Technology Transfer for WIPO. Since 2020 he has been working closely with the UK’s Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), designing and delivering invention validation solutions for application in programmes provided by QUB to numerous UK Universities, and providing IP Audits both to academic innovators and to innovative UK businesses. He also provides licensing and commercialisation support. He has delivered projects regularly for Invest Northern Ireland from 2018-2024. In 2024 Richard was a mentor for the TechStars Belfast DeepTech Start-Up Weekend. He also began assisting the International Center for the Promotion of Enterprises as an Emerging Technologies Consultant, to facilitate wider international technology transfer.

Richard has worked on hundreds of IP Intelligence projects related to inventions across all technical domains including the following areas: biotech, medtech, agritech, biochemical, electrical, engineering, software (e.g. AI, blockchain), construction, transport and environment. Richard has used a wide array of patent and commercial research tools in these projects over the past 17 years.

Richard holds a BA from Ulster University, a MSSc in European Integration and a LLB, (both from QUB). In 2017 Richard gained a Mini-MBA certificate from QUB. In 2024 Richard completed a course on Artificial Intelligence at Said Business School, University of Oxford.